German disruption of Soviet Command, Control and Communications in Barbarossa, 1941
By: by Russel H.S. Stolfi, Lonnie O. Ratley, III., John F. O'Neill, Jr
Contributors: Ratley, Lonnie O.; O'Neill, John F.; Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.); United States. Dept. of Defense. Director of Net Assessment; United States. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence
Publisher: Naval Postgraduate School
Published: 1983
Place of publication: Monterey, Calif
Language: eng
Description: The authors examine the German plans for Operation Barbarossa and the combat  operations of the first five weeks of war in the East in June-July.  The  Germans achieved enormous success i n the opening stages of the offensive including the shattering o f Soviet command, control, and communications (c3).  The purpose of the study was to determine the means by which the Germans  disrupted Soviet C3 and the resulting possible use of Barbarossa as a model for  the Soviets in disrupting NATO C3 in the opening stages of a Warsaw Pact  offensive in Central Europe today.  The study is based on interviews with  German participants in Barbarossa and documents in the federal German military archives at Freiburg.  The study supports the following generalizations:  (1) The German planners of Barbarossa did not have sufficient intelligence of the Soviet armed forces, their relatively primitive C3 system, and  the communications system of the Soviet states to consider as a vital part of their planning the deliberate paralysis of the Soviet armed forces.  (2) The Germans were determined, particularly in the central front opposite their most powerful concentration of forces, to prevent the escape of the powerful peacetime armies in to the hinterland of Russia.  (3) German military operations concentrated, therefore, on extra ordinarily swift and deep penetrations by mobile forces designed to encircle and destroy the largest possible concentrations of Soviet troops causing irreversible casualties and damage and resulting in the quick seizure of the transportation, communications, political, and psychological hub of the Soviet Union--Moscow.  (4) The German military operations designed to encircle physically and destroy vast Soviet army formations simultaneously shattered Soviet C3.  A lesson of the study would seem t o be that a massive, surprise offensive  a t the beginning of a war should lead quickly to the destruction (direct  casualties and damage) and distintegration (paralysis of command and  disruption of control) of the strategic defender. In a Warsaw pact offensive  at the beginning of a war in Central Europe, the Soviets could achieve a  decisive victory with or without special emphasis on deliberate disruption of  NATO C3 simply through the violence and speed of the attack against the  opposing forces in the field  It is unsettling to note further, however, that  the Soviets in applying a potential version of Barbarossa in the future would  probably deliberately target the massive and well known NATO C3 hardware  systems and personnel in West Germany with corresponding paralyzing effects  added to the destruction of the NATO forces lying in the paths of the major attacks.
Notes: Title from cover.

"Prepared for: Director, Net Assessment Office of the Secretary of Defense"--Cover.

"December 1983"--Cover.

"NPS-56-84-001"--Cover.

Includes bibliographical references.

"Approved for public release; distribution unlimited"--Cover.

Technical report; January 1984.