[Legbreaker]

My feeling is that a general offensive along the entire front in Germany was planned with the 4th GTA to be used to bolster either the north, or south section, whichever was showing the greatest chance of success.

Why were they issued with petroleum? Firstly, and possibly formost, for the suprise factor. The entire Army was reported to be in the Ukraine and unable to reach the front for months if running on alcohol. If Nato had been sufficiently dug in and prepared, the Pact units already in the area, while numerically stronger, would probably have a tough time making much headway. Nato command might even think they could hold without radical redeployment of units.

The Pact plan was probably banking on Nato remaining where they were and not shifting reinforcements about (which appear to have consisted almost solely of the entirety British forces in Europe - roughly half a dozen divisions). The presence of the 4th GTA in the area would have caused a serious Nato rethink....

Secondly, the 4th GTA were issued with petroleum over a period of time, not in one, short sharp delivery - there simply wouldn't have been sufficent transportation for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of litres in one go. Therefore we can assume that the 4th's move was planned a very long time in advance.

Rae, I like your thinking. I might actually use that as one of the possible goals of the Pact offensive (the other perhaps turning south and cutting off the units there against the Italians and Czechs, the 4th and other Soviet units in the area then becoming the anvil while the Italians and Czechs were the hammer).

Regardless, the Pact offensive was actually more sucessful than one may initially think. Although they didn't catch the full III German Army, they did get about half of it - the US XI Corps. While not destroyed (if you ignore the 5th ID), they have been rendered ineffectual and are unlikely to cause any further significant problems for the Pact (as long as the Pact can avoid falling apart entirely). Heavy on tanks and heavy equipment, the fuel requirement to shift the two largest surviving components of the XI Corp (50th AD and 2nd MarDiv) is likely to force them to remain immobile for months to come.