ARMIES THREE-DEEP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1943, Page 3

ARMIES THREE-DEEP

EMPLOYED BY RUSSIANS TWO RESTING WHILE ONE FIGHTS LEAP-FROGGING PROGRESS. TACTICS THAT ENSURE SPEED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, September 23. The Red Army has already reachefi the Dnieper on a narrow front opposite the German-held town of Cherkasy, south-east of Kiev, says the “Daily Telegraph’s” Stockholm correspondent. Along the middle and lower reaches of the river from west of Chernigov to south of Zaporozhe the Soviet armies have advanced till they are nowhere more than 40 miles from its lift bank. Tn ’the present offensive the Red Army has introduced important changes in strategy. The most important new tactics are the use of three lines of armies, leap-frogging one over the other in rotation. Two of the armies rest while one fights; when the forward army is to be rested it leaves its equipment, which is taken over by the relieving force. These tactics ensure speed, and the movement of heavy gear is reduced to a minimum. To defeat three great armies in depth is beyond the Germans’ power, and they are acknowledging this fact by abandoning hedgehog bastions which took two years to build. The German Army is not clearing out of the vast Russian spaces to shorten its line and secure divisions for a transfer to the west. No matter what the Nazi propagandists say, there can be no doubt that the German High Command has done all it could to hold back the Russian armies.