This has annoyed me for quite some time. First I read that the Soviets and Germans each suffered millions of combat deaths. Then I read about specific engagements and campaigns like Kursk and the numbers killed are never a whole lot considering how many men were supposed to have been killed the whole war. Wikipedia says Germans suffered about 60k deaths and the Soviets about 70k at Kursk! Is this possible? Am I missing something? Why don't major battles ever have appropriately high casualty figures? It's KURSK man! How can only 130k men have died?

Where do you folks get statistics from? I just have a hard time accepting figures like those....

This has annoyed me for quite some time. First I read that the Soviets and Germans each suffered millions of combat deaths. Then I read about specific engagements and campaigns like Kursk and the numbers killed are never a whole lot considering how many men were supposed to have been killed the whole war. Wikipedia says Germans suffered about 60k deaths and the Soviets about 70k at Kursk! Is this possible? Am I missing something? Why don't major battles ever have appropriately high casualty figures? It's KURSK man! How can only 130k men have died?

Where do you folks get statistics from? I just have a hard time accepting figures like those....

Kursk although signifigant didn't involve that many casualties compared to some other battles. Moscow 41, Stalingrad 43. Also alot of people die outside of the massive battles. The slodiers don't just sit around fight 1 battle and then wait for the next one.

First I read that the Soviets and Germans each suffered millions of combat deaths.

Wich also include getting captured in some cases of statistics. And Kursk, although it was a major battle did not cause that many deaths compared to say Stalingrad, Kiev 41 and Operation Bagration. etc.

The most reliable source for statistics is "Kursk 1943" by Niklas Zetterling and from that book, which draws on German archive records for the German losses and the esteemed Russian Historian Krivosheyev for Soviet losses, the losses were as follows:

German Killed, wounded and missing = 56,827
Soviet KIA, MIA, WIA = 177,847

Total Eastern Front losses for 1943:
Germany = 1,601,454
S.U. = 7,857,503

Don't forget though, that the figures blandly regurgitated by most websites aren't just the total killed, they normally also include wounded. The significance of a military campaign isn't measured by the total number of killed...

Kursk lasted 13 days. 10.000 killed/day in such a localised area is pretty massive.

But the war went on 24/7 over a vast frontline and that's why the casualty figures got so huge.

Kursk lasted 13 days.This is the root of the problem for calculating anything to do with Kursk. Exactly how long *was* the campaign? For the Germans at least, talking about "Kursk" only involves at most thirteen days. However, for the Soviets the campaign also includes the counter-attack around Orel and for some even includes the recapture of Kharkov. That is, anything up to 60 days instead of 13. You have to be very careful that the statistics compared cover the same period and are considering like-for-like.

Never get distracted when it's about 'casualties' in German statistics. We don't use a term like this (included killed, wounded, missing); German numbers ('Verluste') usually do not include those 'only' wounded.

Also, huge numbers of Soldiers didn't die directly in battles. The weather, daily snipers, plagues (Wolhynic Fever). And, both the Russians and Germans add the killed POVs to their casualties (>3 million Russians, similar number of Germans).

Also, don't forget the American (and thanks to Hollywood, this is prevalent everywhere today) view of war is completely different.
US soldiers were sent home after a certain number of missions, like 35 bombing runs.
That, of course, means that war=huge battles/specific missions only.
Especially the later is completely different from the memories of a German, Russian, British soldier - for them, the war was an endless nightmare, up to 7 years in a row with no way out exept getting wounded - or ending the war. And they could die every day, even if not directly at the frontline; partisans, air attacks, insufficient hygienics (remember, Penicillin was only available to the US and later British).

Once the US forces saw substantial action, the situation on the Western front had changed already - absolute air supperiority, and they of course were welcome by the people they liberated.
Bloody battles, of course - but the common German or Russian soldier didn't die in a heroic battle we're still talking about.

US soldiers were sent home after a certain number of missions, like 35 bombing runs.

Not true - while Allied pilots flew 'tours' of a set number of missions, Allied soldiers stayed in the combat zone until they were killed, seriously wounded or the war ended. The system in which soldiers served one year 'tours' in combat zones was only introduced after WW2.

I'm pretty sure US bomber crews 'only' flew a specified set of missions (I've just heard that again in a documentation yesterday). That doesn't apply to British or Commonwealth crews, like I said.
Still, I do not insist on this - maybe someone can clear that up.

IIRC 25 missions for US bomber crews first, then 35. However there were only few crews to come so far... Also IIRC British bomber crews had also a set of missions.

Adler

It was much higher than 25-30 though.

Not true - while Allied pilots flew 'tours' of a set number of missions, Allied soldiers stayed in the combat zone until they were killed, seriously wounded or the war ended. The system in which soldiers served one year 'tours' in combat zones was only introduced after WW2.

"Seriously Wounded" here includes battle fatigue and being labelled as a psycho neurotic. Such soldiers did not return to front line duty, even though their physical wounds were often mere scratches.

WWII Death Count Per Country:
Country Military Civilian Total
USSR 12 million 17 million 29 million
Poland 597,000 5.86 million 6.27 million
Germany 3.25 million 2.44 million 5.69 million
Yugoslavia 305,000 1.35 million 1.66 million
Romania 450,000 465,000 915,000
Hungary 200,000 600,000 800,000
France 245,000 350,000 595,000
Italy 380,000 153,000 533,000
U.K. 403,000 92,700 495,000
U.S. 407,000 6,000 413,000
Czech's 7,000 315,000 322,000
Holland 13,700 236,000 249,000
Greece 19,000 140,000 159,000
Belgium 76,000 23,000 99,000

Hope this helps.

I have more indepth information if you need it, send me a pm.

The German Death count is highly debatted.

Point is, those 3.25 millions are the confirmed deaths. However, there is about 1 million soldiers still missing; and it's safe to assume they are dead.
But, on both sides those who dead as POVs after the war are not included - and that should be the majortiy of those Germans still missing, as well as up to a million Red Army members, who survived the German camps only to get deported again by Stalin.

I don't want to discuss your numbers en detail; you just have to mention who are included, and who are not.
The real message remains unchanged - the Soviet Union and Poland suffered by far the highest casulties, in total numbers as well is in relation to their pop count. Germany, China and Yugoslavia (mostly caused by the civil war, not by the Germans themselves) follow.
And the Western Allies and Japan do not come anywhere near.

in the recent list posted there is no china or japan who im sure would of been near the top of the list

The entire death tolls are highly debated. Some of them, notably the USSR's we will probably never truly know the answer for.

Nobody:
China 2.5 mil soldiers /up to 15 mil civilians
Japan 1,3 mil / 670k
(en.Wiki)

Both numbers include the pre-WW2 casualties. I was considering those numbers in my post above, btw.

in the recent list posted there is no china or japan who im sure would of been near the top of the list

Japan was (on soldier losses) at the 3 or 4 place, if you count the pre-ww 2 casualties and don't count civilians to the total.

The Germans count Kursk as one battle, and Soviets count Kursk and their counteroffensive as one? That's confusing, but I guess it makes sense from their perspective...

So the combat deaths in a battle or campaign are only part of the picture, because a lot more died in captivity or crappy conditions? But still, it amazes me that some of the American Civil War battles had more direct combat deaths than some WWII battles... And yeah, the front in the east was huge and almost constantly active...

But still, it amazes me that some of the American Civil War battles had more direct combat deaths than some WWII battles...

As Medicine develops it can fewer the amounts of combat casualties, this was the case in ww2. But so does war technology develope more people die through that. Back in the American civil war, treatment of combat wounds was in no way comparable to that of ww2.

Russian Loses : Operation Typhoon Moscow 1941

Estimate losses : 1.5 Million

do you have estimates of German losses for Typhoon?

yes

German losses for Typhoon
55,000

Can someone please check this ? I know that Russian Figures were released due to being declassified after the fall of the USSR. German losses i cannot be certain.
Adler ? do you know

I heard on the History Channel that the Germans lost around 100,000 in Operation Citadel and the Russians around 250,000, with numerous wounded on both sides.

I saw different numbers in the book 'Images of Kursk' (which is also a history of the battle): 60,000 Germans and 150,000 Russians.

Either way, it was mostly a 2.5:1 casualty affair, which in the context of the whole Eastern Front is very very favorable to the Russians. In the whole fight on the eastern front, military casualties averaged at 5:1.

Nobody:
China 2.5 mil soldiers /up to 15 mil civilians
Japan 1,3 mil / 670k
(en.Wiki)

Both numbers include the pre-WW2 casualties. I was considering those numbers in my post above, btw.It should be mentioned that the uncertainties in Chinese losses are huge.

An old encyclopaedia of mine gives the Chinese losses as 0.5-30 million. I suppose they couldn't bear to write "unknown".

Remember that Soviets lost up to 5-6 million soldiers (1/2 of total loses!!!) in the first year of the war (Operation Barbarossa). Soviet casualties are a very controvercial issue as civilian and military deaths are often mixed up.

And not all of the Soviet losses are done by Germans. Shooting deserteurs for instance.

Adler

The Soviet Army was generally clumsy as well, with a lot of friendly fire.
Inferior tactics with mass assaults, officers with tall caps visible to snipers, poor logistics and so on killed a lot of people.

Do battle fatigue suffers count towards the casualty rate? This is probably most applicable to teh Americans as I know the germans were made to fight untill they couldnt fight anymore and i presume the Russians were the same (possibly sending teh men to camps gulags etc) and the British suffered a lot less to this condition due to a better rotation.

The Soviet Army was generally clumsy as well, with a lot of friendly fire.
Inferior tactics with mass assaults, officers with tall caps visible to snipers, poor logistics and so on killed a lot of people.

Please give me an example of those tall hats... I'm really curious about this one actually.

It is true that the doctrine of the Army was generally not to care about the soldeirs (i.e. don't care how many die), but this is due to Party Doctrine that was abandoned closer to the end of the war. It was practiced in a lot in the beginning of the war, but could be due to the fact that quite often 3 men had 1 rifle. Soviets lost 1/2 of the total losses in the first year of the war.... Since 1942/43 the tactics began to change.

I doubt Americans could sacrifice themselves so much for their homeland like Soviets, Germans and Japanese did in that war.

I never heard of massive examples of friendly fire in WW2 so I can't really comment. But I can't say that Soviet ones were greater as all "specialized" soldiers were generally very skilled.

Do battle fatigue suffers count towards the casualty rate? This is probably most applicable to teh Americans as I know the germans were made to fight untill they couldnt fight anymore and i presume the Russians were the same (possibly sending teh men to camps gulags etc) and the British suffered a lot less to this condition due to a better rotation.
Good point. I doubt Soviet or German Army has any sort of "rotation". The only way out was through being wounded or killed. That contributed a lot to casualties as newier reqruits had to gain the lost experience with their blood, when the "older soldiers" finally died.

During WWII, the US army did not have any sort of rotation either. If you were in the infantry, you were in it for the duration. Imagine surviving North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, etc only to get news that your unit was slated to invade japan.

I doubt Americans could sacrifice themselves so much for their homeland like Soviets, Germans and Japanese did in that war.

That's hard to gauge. The Americans weren't really fighting for their country in the sense that they were defending it against invaders who had ruined their cities and killed their civilians, rather they were invading the countries of their enemies. But if the Americans were in a truly desperate situation with a more authoritarian government, I don't see why they wouldn't be as tenacious. The 2 factors to be considered are: Americans weren't defending their homeland anywhere near their homeland; and they had a democratic government and society which wasn't as accepting of huge casualties.

A fair point...

This site gives a good breakdown of German losses during the war: www.feldgrau.com/stats.html

Also details Panzer production throughout the war.

Gelion, judging by the passion shown during the ACW I very much believe the Americans would have fought just as herocially as any other nation. House to house fighting in New York city- that would be interesting.

Theres a old saying

"There are no bad soldiers only bad commanders"

Wehrmacht (without SS) dead and missing (without wounded) losses as reported until 30 November 1944:

Everything apart from "Luftwaffe all fronts" and "Navy (Kriegsmarine) all fronts" refer to losses of Heer (ground army), but not including SS:

http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/4069/whlosses19391944.jpg

Did we really need to necro this?

...isn't that what they're there for?

This has annoyed me for quite some time. First I read that the Soviets and Germans each suffered millions of combat deaths. Then I read about specific engagements and campaigns like Kursk and the numbers killed are never a whole lot considering how many men were supposed to have been killed the whole war. Wikipedia says Germans suffered about 60k deaths and the Soviets about 70k at Kursk! Is this possible? Am I missing something? Why don't major battles ever have appropriately high casualty figures? It's KURSK man! How can only 130k men have died?

Where do you folks get statistics from? I just have a hard time accepting figures like those....

I hesitated to jump into this ancient and apparently evil old thread, but I noticed that nobody gave the correct answer to the OP's question.

In my opinion, the relatively low KIA at the Battle of the Kursk Salient, was do to the fact that it was not, primarily, an infantry battle. As most of you know, it was the great tank battle of the war - one of the largest in history. A war of machines as much as men.

Consider Midway, also a great battle. KIA's are seldom even included in many accounts. Rather the relevant issue was the irreplaceable loss of the four Japanese strike carriers and their component air wings. Or the Battle of Britain, with it's extremely low KIA - a matter of the ratio of aircraft kills on both sides and air superiority over the Channel.

The significance of Kursk was the massive destruction of German armor, amounting to approximately an entire year of Reich war production. The German Panzer armies never recovered from it.

During WWII, the US army did not have any sort of rotation either. If you were in the infantry, you were in it for the duration. Imagine surviving North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, etc only to get news that your unit was slated to invade japan.

eh really, what about the points system? Airborne divisions were technically US Army, this much coming from only watching Band of Brothers.


As a sidenote, that pretty much happened to the British 7th Armoured Division (and some infantry regiments involved in Africa as well).

7th Armoured was the main British unit doing the lifting in 1940-41, even though they were against the macaronis but still. From Africa to Italy and from there to Normandy and through France to Germany. Were not slated for the planned invasion of Japan though!

eh really, what about the points system? Airborne divisions were technically US Army, this much coming from only watching Band of Brothers.


You're correct there... AFAIK the Points system applied to the entire US Army, not just the Airborne (although as previously noted the USAAF had mission quotas). And it was instituted towards the end of the war I think, but if you were in the PBI, you usually didn't get medals that counted towards too many points, and most GIs wouldn't have been in more than one Theatre, so it would've very much been a case of coming out of the line feet first. Remembering of course that soldiers were rotated as individuals through combat units which never left the front, as opposed to the Commonwealth model of occasionally pulling units off the line when they could.


7th Armoured was the main British unit doing the lifting in 1940-41, even though they were against the macaronis but still. From Africa to Italy and from there to Normandy and through France to Germany. Were not slated for the planned invasion of Japan though!

Oh? So the 6th and 9th Australian Divisions were sitting on their backsides brewing up I suppose? So I suppose were the New Zealand Division? The South Africans? The Poles? The Indians? The other British divisions other than 7 ARMD? I suppose next you're going to tell us that the Maltese played no part in the result either.

I don't know where you get your information mate, but the Eighth Army was the Eighth Army, of which the 7th Armoured Division was simply a part. And the fighting in Africa against "the Macaroni's" was as much fought against German 88m anti-tank guns as it was against Italian equipment (although it's true that Germany's allies contributed more manpower to the Afrika Corps than Germany herself did). Moreover 8th Army it was an Army that went through some of the toughest fighting in the war in Italy (which by the way, other Armies also slogged it out in without having the "glory" associated of getting to Germany) before and after the Western European theatre was opened (to which the Desert Rats were allocated).

There were plenty of formations who helped do the heavy lifting before US manpower helped reverse the tide in Africa, Italy and Western Europe. I'd suggest you perhaps research a little further into the subject. And stay away from anything written by Stephen Ambrose if you decide to do so. ;)

Oh? So the 6th and 9th Australian Divisions were sitting on their backsides brewing up I suppose? So I suppose were the New Zealand Division? The South Africans? The Poles? The Indians? The other British divisions other than 7 ARMD? I suppose next you're going to tell us that the Maltese played no part in the result either.



They were at least for 1940. For the record, it wasn't even called the Eight Army at the time, it was called Western Desert Force. In late 1940-early 1941 the Aus units arrived in the theater. I see that the Western Desert Force did include 1/3 of the New Zealand division, and something like 2/3 the 4th Indian Division.

It was still the primary armoured unit in the theater, thus the main striking arm in the desert if you will, on the ground, specifically to exclude RAF and RN just this once.

British situation was atrocious on paper, a weakly equipped 7th Armoured, with the similarly understrength New Zealand and Indian divisions, held off the numerically much superiour Italian forces. If the Western Desert Force had for whatever reason lost against the Italian tenth army, the road to Alexandria would be wide open. Egypt would have been lost. Anthony Eden "Never has so much been surrendered by so many, to so few."

In any case the 7th Armoured was on the frontlines, in offensive operations, basically from 1940-1945. That was my point in the previous post. I think few other Allied divisions/regiments/brigades can claim something like that. No wonder they may have been a little combat fatigue.

eh really, what about the points system? Airborne divisions were technically US Army, this much coming from only watching Band of Brothers.
It's more complicated than that. The reference compares to now, where men serve "tours" and periodically return to the US before going back to the front.
What you are referring to was one of the first steps to demobilization beginning at the end of the war in Europe, the "points" were a way to measure those most deserving to be sent home. Anyone with sufficient points, was not rotated to teh US temporarily, but recieved a discharge.

They were at least for 1940. For the record, it wasn't even called the Eight Army at the time, it was called Western Desert Force. In late 1940-early 1941 the Aus units arrived in the theater. I see that the Western Desert Force did include 1/3 of the New Zealand division, and something like 2/3 the 4th Indian Division.

It was still the primary armoured unit in the theater, thus the main striking arm in the desert if you will, on the ground, specifically to exclude RAF and RN just this once.

British situation was atrocious on paper, a weakly equipped 7th Armoured, with the similarly understrength New Zealand and Indian divisions, held off the numerically much superiour Italian forces. If the Western Desert Force had for whatever reason lost against the Italian tenth army, the road to Alexandria would be wide open. Egypt would have been lost. Anthony Eden "Never has so much been surrendered by so many, to so few."

In any case the 7th Armoured was on the frontlines, in offensive operations, basically from 1940-1945. That was my point in the previous post. I think few other Allied divisions/regiments/brigades can claim something like that. No wonder they may have been a little combat fatigue.

You're quite correct about the wider designation of the British Army there at the time, but that's not quite the point I was making...

And please don't misunderstand me, I'm definitely not trying to bag the Desert Rats... not at all... the point I was making was that out of all the formations there (some of whom participated in some very heavy fighting over equally protracted periods), to simply class the 7th as the "Go-to-Guys" from start to finish might be taking things a bit far - warfare in the North African campaign was as much about Motorised Transport and Anti-Tank guns as it was about just Tanks, and subsequent campaigns as we all know were even more combined arms orientated.

Certainly there would've been personnel who'd been fighting for extended periods of time and were certainly subject to combat trauma. But the 7th wouldn't have even come close to having a monopoly on this amongst non-American units. In fact most of the Commonwealth/Allied units that fought in North Africa with the 7th were either survivors of the earlier Greek and Crete campaigns (New Zealanders, Australians and Poles as a case in point) - the 7th were indeed formed and in action earlier, but then again the Indians were already there too.

Another thing to consider of course when researching this thing from a non-American/non-Soviet but Allied point of view is that British and Commonwealth sub-units at a Brigade and even a Battalion/Regimental level (and let's not confuse the British term 'Regiment' from WW2 with the American one) tended to rotate through Divisional assignment much more readily than with American units, because units tended to be rotated out whole where possible.

So how in the world did 6000 U.S. civilians die according to that chart on page 1 of this thread? We can assume some civilians died in Pearl harbor, but what about the others? I'm assuming either Americans living abroad, or commercial shipping sunk by German and Japanese u-boats.

Probably people stationed abroad in the Philippines, or merchant marine vessels that were sunk.