Talk:Battle of the Seelow Heights

message: These are the latest figures apparently taken from military field records.  I did some adding from the scattered data.
:1. Total losses of 1GTA, 47A, 61A, 69A, and 3SA 16-19 April: 3957 killed, 15590 wounded.
:2. Losses of 33rd Army 15–20 April: 1,687 killed, 7,213 wounded, 128 missing, 13 non-battle, 206 diseased.[18]
:3. Losses of 5th Shock Army 11–30 April: 3,628 killed, 13,702 wounded, 60 missing, 476 by other causes.[19]
:4. Losses of 8th Gds Army 16–20 April: 12-13,000 total casualties.[20]
:5. Losses of 2nd Gds Tank Army (only three Corps without army troops) 16–21 April: 265 killed, 1,530 wounded.[21]
Ok, the first problem we have with this data is the difference in timeframe.  However, we can reasonably combine ones with similar categories first.  Adding 1+2+5 (counting diseased as medical and non-battle/missing as deaths), then adding line 4.
Subtotal: 6050 dead, 24539 wounded + 12-13000 dead and wounded
The question is what to do with line 3, which obviously includes fighting beyond Seelow.  However, we can still use these figures to get a reasonable estimate and upper range for casualties (note: past this point what I say will be constituted as OR, but I think it serves as a useful thought exercise regardless)
Let's divide the 13,000 into 3000 dead and 10000 wounded:
Subtotal 2: 9050 dead, 34539 wounded
And let's be generous and say that 1/2 of 5th shock army's casualties happened at Seelowe (1814 kia, 6851 wounded, 30 missing, 238 other).
This gives us a grand total of: 11132 dead, 41390 wounded, 52522 total casualties
To give a range, the number can be anywhere between 9000-13000 dead and 34000-48000 wounded, depending on how many of 8th GA's casualties you want to add in (the former figure is 0% and the latter is 100%).
Now why did I write this all?  I think it's useful to think about this battle in terms of some hard numbers.  It was nowhere near as bloody as some would claim, though it was very bloody in its own right. (The losses to the 33rd Army and 8th Guards Army would have constituted a 20-25% reduction of their original strength in just 5 days! This is catastrophic in typical military terms, where just a 10% loss of strength would disrupt a unit and severely impair its ability to conduct further operations without resupply and reorganization).
This lower estimate actually makes more sense, since the Battle of Berlin was more than just Seelow, the Halbe, and the Berlin assault.  The battle was a massive mopping up operation against three-quarters of a million German troops, probably only a third of whom participated in those three key sub-battles.
But I think there needs to be some way of conveying these more up-to-date but more disjointed statistics in this article.  Perhaps instead of having the number in the battle box, we can tell the reader to consult the appropriate section in the article?  Megakedar (talk) 05:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestions for Amending the Casualties info?

message: Info box says that there were 100,000 Germans. But introduction of the article mentions 200,000. Which number is correct? --79.132.160.123 (talk) 15:22, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  About 91,000 in 9th Army, I've adjusted accordingly and added a reference. Hohum (talk) 17:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Strength of the defenders

message: A lot of information for this article can be copied from the Battle of Berlin article. Philip Baird Shearer 20:52, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: From Berlin

message: * The main east-west autobahn is crossing the river Oder at Frankfurt (Oder) around 10 miles south of Seelow. Pls check with Google Maps. But Seelow and Kustrin are part of the German town's which are connected with a federal highway now called Bundesstraße 1 (old name Reichsstrasse 1). This was the most important road between the autobahn Berlin - Stettin in the north and the autobahn Berlin - Frankfurt (Oder) in the south.
* In your source about a reservoir upstream you will need to confirm the location of this artificial lake upstream. Near Seelow was no artificial lake!? If flooded everybody would need a boot. The plain was during the spring time in 1945 just soaked because the snow melted and this was a former swamp region (Oderbruch). Please delete the reference of an artificial lake upstream --Tiem Borussia 73 (talk) 22:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buildup section 

message: 70,000 killed? In the entire Berlin Offensive 81,000 Soviets were killed, it is impossible that nearly all of these losses were sustained at Seelow Heights. 70,000 might be closer to total Soviet causalties in the battle(KIA,WIA,MIA)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.177.186.81 (talk) 03:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ridiculous 

message: Should it be mentioned this battle was portrayed in COD5? What were the types of weapons they used? Were they similar to the games? Kaiman1023 (talk) 20:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: COD5

message: Should a section be added about what appears to be the monument dedicated to the battle?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kriegerdenkmal-Seelower-Hoehe-k.jpg
--Elven6 (talk) 05:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Battles/Monuments? 

message: Why on this page and others are the german and soviet flags being removed?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.31.167.125 (talk) 02:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag erasing 

message: As a reader not a contributor, I've had difficulty working out exactly where this was fought.
Could we have a map showing the location of the Heights and the co-ordinates of the monument discussed below -assuming its on the battlefield.  
JRPG (talk) 17:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Battles/Monuments ...Location? 

message: I have downgraded this article to start class. Not all paragraphs are cited and the prose quality is lacking too. D2306 (talk) 10:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Start class 

message: To make it clear: I dont wanted to remove anything, but having only the casualties of 2 of the 9 participating armies in the infobox, makes them not comparable for the reader to the German ones, especially if the in-Article text gives a much larger overall figures for the Soviets (~60k total casualties for the whole operation with very scattered data). Thats why i put out. StoneProphet (talk) 22:53, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I fully agree, and also think that these incomplete tables showing Soviet losses in the text section are rather disturbing to the reader, they do not add much to the whole picture. I suggest they should be summarized. EriFr (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 09:18, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

text: Wut, you don't want soviet casualties to look modest even if they were, so it's ok to put Beevor's wild guesstimates? Talk about NPOV here...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.45.152.26 (talk) 08:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soviet Casualties 

message: A battle map (example: :File:Battle of Stalingrad.png) would make this article much more helpful and easy to understand. GMRE (talk) 20:19, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: A battle map would be helpful

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