Not raids

For a raid to be a raid, three conditions must be fulfilled:

• There is an (attempted) surprise attack
• The force goes to a hostile location and tries to fulfill its mission
• The force withdraws when the mission is complete

So these operations - however admirable or heroic - are not raids: 

• Battle of Tulagi and Gavutu–Tanambogo, August 1942.  Although the capture of Tulagi by the U.S. Marine Corps had raid-like elements, they did not withdraw after their victory, instead occupying Tulagi and turning it into a key strongpoint for U.S. naval forces in the Guadalcanal campaign.

• Carlson's Patrol, Guadalcanal, November-December 1942.  This famous march of 150 miles, which included a dozen or so battles and skirmishes, was more a pursuit or reconnaissance in force.  There was sustained contact with hostile forces, and, apart from harassing and defeating the enemy where possible, no concrete objective.  

• The Rangers take Zerf, February 1945.  There are some similarities to the Tatsinskaya raid in the sense that the Rangers were tasked to conduct 'deep operations' in German-controlled territory.  And, as at Tatsinkaya, the objective was to deny supplies to an enemy force - in this case German troops in Zerf, a town on the western German frontier.  The Rangers did so, and although they were told they would be relieved in 48 hours, a change of plan meant it actually took nine days.  Their service was heroic, but their operation was never conceived as anything other than the permanent capture of territory in support of offensive operations...so not a raid.

Not saying it was easy

The Good Raid

The Marine Corps raiding manual singles out one raid for particular praise, Operation Claymore, the March 1941 British commando raid on the Lofoten Islands off the northern cost of Norway.

The attack of the Lofoten Islands is an excellent example of an ideal selection. It met a military need; the location and enemy defenses made it susceptible to attack; it was within the capability of a well-trained but inexperienced raid force; and it provided a much needed morale boost to the nation.

According to the Manual, this is how you do things.


Target Selection, Intelligence
The Lofoten Islands are remote (north of the Arctic Circle) and difficult to defend, but strategically important.  Normally a quiet, pleasant place.

An ideal target:

The Lofotens provided the Germans the majority of their fish oils, an essential ingredient in manufacturing explosives. The nearest German airfields were iced over at this time of year and the nearest garrison able to influence the battle was almost 60 miles away. It appeared resistance from both ground and air forces outside the objective area would be slight.

In contradistinction to Dieppe, the intelligence in this case was precisely accurate.


Force Composition
According to the Marine Corps manual, it is best to keep raiding forces as small as possible, and put as much firepower as possible behind and above them.  On the first count, the British did reasonably well, sending about 500 troops - enough to handle prisoners and demolitions, but only about 1/10 of the size of the forces employed at Tatsinkaya or Dieppe.

On the second however, they traded firepower for stealth, employing just five destroyers to support the attacking force.  The British were not willing to risk bigger ships on this sort of operation.  The error had no consequences in this raid, but a similar miscalculation at Dieppe meant that when the raiding force got into trouble there simply was not sufficient firepower offshore to suppress the enemy and allow an orderly evacuation.

HMS Expendable Legion

The RAF did not participate for the same reasons as the Luftwaffe - the target area was out of reach of military air bases at this time of year.  Still, you couldn't have Ark Royal with its obsolete aircraft hanging around a couple hundred miles offshore?  What if a Geman cruiser or two had been in the area?

(By the way, when Ark Royal was critically hit by a sub in November 1941, it was Legion, one of the destroyers from the Lofoten Islands raid, that evacuated her crew.)


Surprise
In any case, excess firepower was not needed because surprise was complete.  The raiding force took a very roundabout route to the target to avoid detection, sailing first to the Faroe Islands and then north toward the Arctic before turning east toward Lofoten.

Execution
The target selection, intelligence, and approach were so well done the raid was virtually unopposed.  The only German asset to fire a shot was the armed trawler Krebs, which was quickly disabled, plundered (more on this later), and sunk.  After that, it was a cakewalk:




Results
The raiding force had one casualty.  Against that, it...

• Destroyed a cod boiling plant, two factories, and 800,000 imperial gallons of fish oil.
• Destroyed 18,000 tons of shipping including the merchant ships Hamburg, Pasajes, Felix, Mira, Eilenau, Rissen, Andø, Grotto, and Bernhard Schulte, as well as the aforementioned Krebs.
• Took 228 prisoners and, according to the Marine Corps manual, "over 300 Norwegians returned with the commandos to serve with the Allies throughout the remainder of the war."
• Achieved a much-needed propaganda victory - the Marine Corps manual states that "the raid was filmed and shown throughout Britain to the delight of every audience."
• It is debatable whether the raid "held the Hun in a constant state of jitters" as promised in the newsreel, but the fact is that this and subsequent raids forced the Germans to divert significant forces to the defense of Norway.  They garrison ultimately consistent of almost half a million men, a larger force than Sixth Army (the one they lost at Stalingrad) or the Afrika Korps.

And best of all...

• Captured from Krebs rotor wheels and code books for an Enigma machine, which "enabled Bletchley Park to read all the German naval codes for some time and provided the intelligence needed to allow Allied convoys to avoid U-boat concentrations." - Wikipedia

Also, Full marks for theatrical effect.  As they departed, the raiders left behind the hallmark of a successful raid operation: a massive column of smoke:

As seen from HMS Legion (Wikipedia)

Well done.  I wish the reader many such raids in their careers.

• "Operation Claymore" on Wikipedia - (link)
• "Lofoten Islands Vacations in Norway" - (link)

How (not) to conduct your raid

Here are a few basic principles from the U.S. Marine Corps publication Raid Operations, which is available for download by raiding hobbyists here.  Remember: if raiding manuals are outlawed, only outlaws will have raids.

For each principle we supply a counterexample from the disastrous August 1942 British-Canadian raid on the French port of Dieppe, which had losses comparable to Badanov's raid on Tatskinskaya, but with no strategic benefit whatsoever.

The goals of the Dieppe operation were to win a propaganda victory, embarrass the Germans, and gain some experience.  Yes on the experience part.  As for the rest, not so much.


PRINCIPLE #1:  GET THE INFO.  "Detailed planning for a raid requires precise intelligence. The availability or lack of intelligence affects all aspects of the raid operation."

Intelligence on the area was sparse: there were dug-in German gun positions on the cliffs, but these had not been detected or spotted by air reconnaissance photographers. The planners had assessed the beach gradient and its suitability for tanks only by scanning holiday snapshots, which led to an underestimation of the German strength and of the terrain.  The [original plan said] "intelligence reports indicate that Dieppe is not heavily defended and that the beaches in the vicinity are suitable for landing infantry and armoured fighting vehicles..."- Wikipedia

ALWAYS check if there are Germans dug-in on the cliffs

[T]he Calgary Tanks that did arrive onshore were restricted in their movement, many becoming bogged down by the shingle beach (consisting of large pebbles, known as chert). - The Canadian Encyclopedia 

“Having served as a Commando soldier, my main impression after studying the landing beaches… was one of amazement that anyone with the slightest knowledge of amphibious warfare could contemplate such a place.”- Robin Neillands

PRINCIPLE #2:  KEEP IT SECRET.  "Surprise is a force multiplier essential to raid operations, and is achieved by many means. The capability to conduct the unexpected raid creates for the enemy a host of contingencies for which he must prepare."

[P]art of the landing force encountered a small German convoy, that alerted the German defenses. As the ships approached the Dieppe beach at 5:20 a.m., it was clear that they had lost the element of surprise.- "Disaster at Dieppe", the CBC 

The belief that the Germans had received accurate and detailed warning of the attacks has been strengthened by subsequent accounts of both German and Allied POWs. Major C. E. Page, while interrogating a German soldier, found out that four machine-gun battalions were brought in "specifically" in anticipation of a raid.  There are numerous accounts of interrogated German prisoners, German captors, and French citizens who all conveyed to Canadians that the Germans had been preparing for the anticipated Allied landings for weeks. - Wikipedia

PRINCIPLE #3:  BLAST 'EM.  "[F]ire support, particularly on-call fire support, should be considered for every phase. In the event of premature detection, fire support may be the most rapid and effective method of reinforcing the raid force."

The planned air bombardment on Dieppe was reduced, for fear of French casualties, and because of the continuing priority of the strategic bombing offensive on Germany. Eight destroyers were allocated to bombard the shore from seaward, as it was judged that battleships could not be used, being too vulnerable when they were close to the coast...- Julian Thompson, BBC 

The Essex Scottish Regiment and the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry landed roughly on time, but they had lost the element of surprise and the limited fire support had failed to suppress or destroy German fire positions. As a result they were met with crushing fire; very few ever got off the beach. - Major C.J. Frederickson

More of this needed:  Warspite at Normandy

PRINCIPLE #4:  HAVE AN EXIT STRATEGY.  "Withdrawal must be swift and orderly...The means for evacuation must be available for immediate loading when the raid force arrives at the beach or landing zone (LZ). This is critical as the enemy may be actively pursuing the raid force. Cover is required to prevent enemy interference."

Throughout the extraction, the landing craft were heavily engaged by fire coming from the East and West Headlands (the area that was supposed to be captured by the R Regt C and S Sask R respectively). Only through aggressive RAF support and the use of smoke screens could any landing craft make it ashore and back out to sea. Even with this support, many landing craft were destroyed in the shallow water or sunk as they tried to move away from the beach. - Lieutenant-Colonel James Goodman, USMC

Here are two additional rules not mentioned in the Marine manual from my extensive experience  planning raids as a soldier of fortune:

DO NOT ASSUME THE ENEMY WILL STAY CONFUSED.  As with mountain climbing, tiger wrestling, and drug dealing, it is easier to get in than it is to get out.  As the plan proceeds your own capacities diminish as the enemy begins to regain his senses.  You want to be going out the door when that happens.  Therefore, never adopt a plan which ends with "and we will escape in the confusion."  Work out your exit strategy and a good Plan B beforehand, not late in the afternoon, on a beach swept by machine gun fire.

They might be assholes, but they're not stupid.

I also have a second principle, which the raiding force did employ at Dieppe:

EMPLOY UNREASONABLE PEOPLE.  Here is a sensible-looking fellow.

At Dieppe, after various superhuman feats, he finished up the day covering the extraction of survivors from a strongpoint he'd established:

He survived.

Move fast and break things: the Raid on Tatsinskaya

This post relies heavily on an outstanding booklet by defense analyst Robert Forczyk entitled Red Christmas:  The Tatsinskaya Airfield Raid, 1942.  (link)


About 35 kilometers east of Belaya Kalitva, Rostov Oblast, Russia, there is a monument commemorating the raid on Tatsinskaya Airfield by Vasily Badanov's 24th Tank Corps on Christmas Eve, 1942.  A column of tanks charge through a gap and up into the sky, leaving a slew of wrecked aircraft in their wake.

It's not wrong.

The Plan
The Germans are bottled up in Stalingrad, only a miracle can save them.  But they've got an airlift going, and it's just keeping Sixth Army alive.  That buys time - Erich von Manstein, the greatest panzer general in the history of the universe - has a counteroffensive underway, and the Germans are rushing in more units to assist with the relief effort.

If the Russians can take out the airfields, the airlift collapses, Sixth Army can't hold out, and the Battle of Stalingrad ends quickly.  But those airfields are 150 miles beyond the front lines, and you'd need to bring heavy weapons to destroy them.  A mechanized operation that deep into enemy territory has never been attempted in modern warfare.

Call it a stretch goal

It is very possible the operation will fail.  On the other hand, this is the Eastern Front in 1942, and if you have to burn a tank corps, maybe you burn a tank corps.

Transit
The Russians launch Operation Little Saturn, a coordinated assault through the Italian sector that threatens to cut off Manstein's Panzers as they drive toward Stalingrad.  The fighting is insane and heroic, and leaves a huge gap in the Axis lines.  Through that gap goes Badanov's 24th Tank Corps, heading straight for Tatsinskaya.

At 0200hrs on 18 December, Badanov’s corps conducted a forward passage of lines through the 4th Guards Rifle Corps and advanced southward into the snow-filled void.       - Forczyk

This is not a little commando raid.  This is 5,000 men, 140 tanks, 300 trucks, and some armored cars, going for a motor-tour of Rostov Oblast, a region not noted for its rest stops.  They have enough fuel to get there, but - unless they find some along the way - probably not enough to get back.

The column was immense – initially about 5km (3 miles) long and 1.5–2km (0.9–1.2 miles) wide – but there were few Germans or Italians in the area to see it.  - Forczyk

Even with no enemy around, serious problems crop up:

• They can only drive during daylight, and there's only eight hours of it this time of year.
• There aren't enough trained drivers, and after a couple of days the ones they have are exhausted and keep falling asleep at the wheel.  
• The T-34 tanks are awesome and built for this sort of thing, but the light T-70s - a wartime kludge design - have trouble keeping up.
• The T-34s have heaters, but the other vehicles don't, so they have to stop periodically so everyone can get out and warm up.
• Overloaded trucks start to go by the wayside, their suspensions shot.  The men in the trucks, not wishing to be left alone in a frozen desert deep in enemy territory, hop on other overloaded trucks, or onto the tanks.
• The Corps soon outdistances its air cover, so Badanov has to disperse the force into smaller groups to limit the damage from possible Luftwaffe attacks.

The column spreads out and slows down, sometimes making only 15 miles per day.  But they do move, and on December 23rd they have tanks with riders - but not much else - within striking distance of the target.

The Decision

Badanov was now only 27km (17 miles) from Tatsinskaya and he knew that it was decision time. The 24th Tank Corps was now badly spread out...  Refuelling would take hours and cost him any remaining surprise. On the other hand, his scouts informed him that the two German Kampfgruppen were lingering nearby...  - Forczyk

George Patton once said:  "a good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."  Of course his raid failed, but as a general principle it seems sound.

There is a line from the movie Torpedo Run, when a U.S. submarine has an enemy carrier in its sights, but firing will expose it to certain counterattack and probable destruction.

• Glenn Ford:  What would you do?
• Borgnine:  I'd stay up and shoot.  That's what we're here for.

Hey...come to think of it...!?

Badanov's low on fuel.  His men are cold and tired.

Safe in Berlin, Göring ordered that his Luftwaffe men would ‘stand fast’ at Tatsinskaya and that evacuation was not authorized unless Soviet tanks were firing on the runway.  - Forczyk

Mayhem
The next morning Soviet tanks are firing on the runway.

[Base Commander] Fiebig was awoken from two hours’ sleep by the sound of rockets exploding nearby, which contributed to his deteriorating state of mind. He was hurriedly driven to the airfield, arriving around 0815hrs. Meanwhile, at the train station, Soviet tankers discovered a train with flatcars loaded with 50 damaged aircraft, intended for shipment back to repair depots in Germany, as well as a train loaded with aviation fuel. These trains, as well as the loading docks at the railyard, were soon set ablaze. - Forczyk

Badanov's tanks, approaching from three directions, hit the airfield during normal flight operations.  Chaos ensues as dozens of German planes try to take off at once, some colliding with one another as the Russians fire 75mm shells into them and spray the area with machine gun fire.  Refueling trucks - easy targets of opportunity and hard for the Germans to replace - explode all over the base.

In the later stages of the raid, some of Nechayev’s T-34 tanks had apparently exhausted their main gun ammunition and they began ramming the tail sections of Ju-52 transports on the flight line, in order to prevent their take-off. - Forczyk

A majority of the German planes manage to take off, including one, according to reports, piloted by a signal officer who had never flown a plane before. Nevertheless, the attack knocks out about 10% of the transport capacity of the Luftwaffe.  The base commander jumps on the last plane out, leaving hundreds of his troops to their fate.

The Russians mop up efficiently, utterly wrecking the base.


Exfiltration
At this point it may be useful to reflect on a problem with raids.  Raids are fun, at first.  You plan creatively, you get to surprise the enemy, and maybe take out a big strategic target.  But, like Game of Thrones, it's hard to work out a good ending.

Most raids are planned like this:

• 24 Tank Corps: [Achieves surprise, seizes airfield in enemy rear areas and destroys it.]
• Germans:  OMG WTF aughghgh!
• 24 Tank Corps: Heh heh heh [Escapes in the confusion]

But most raids go like this:

• 24 Tank Corps: [Achieves surprise, seizes airfield in enemy rear areas and destroys it.]
• Germans:  Vector in Luftwaffe scouts, fighter-bombers and dive-bombing units.  Re-direct 11 and 6 Panzer to the affected area.  Re-direct nearby battle groups to blocking positions and support.  Destroy raiding force, take no prisoners.
• 24 Tank Corps: Ah.

11th Panzer, retreating from the east, is heading straight for the base with orders from Hitler to kill everyone in sight.  Very quickly, Team Badanov is surrounded by well-supplied superior forces.  His tanks, mostly out of fuel (their diesels can't burn the 300 tons of benzene they've captured), are sitting ducks.

Badanov knows it won't go well and gets ready to try and escape.  But there's a problem:  Stalin has a new plan:

At 2200hrs, Badanov was able to get through to Vatutin and reported: ‘Situation critical. No tanks. Large losses of personnel. Have lost half my officers. Cannot keep Tatsinskaya. I ask permission to withdraw from the area. Enemy transport aircraft on the airfield are destroyed.’ Amazingly, Badanov’s request to evacuate Tatsinskaya was refused. Even though the operation was conceived as a raid, Stalin no longer wanted to give up the airfield since he recognized that holding it had great propaganda value. 
- Forczyk

Evacuate?  In our moment of triumph?

Badanov reviews his options:

a) die for nothing on a wrecked airfield, or 

b) MacGyver a breakout and try to talk his way out of the firing squad when he gets back.

He selects b).

This being the Eastern Front in 1942, he escapes by the simple expedient of ordering 300 "volunteers" to attack the Germans in one direction, while he and a thousand men and a few crippled tanks sneak through a gap on the other side of the perimeter.  The 300 are never heard from again.

The remnants, as per Soviet doctrine, manage to return and link up with the advancing main force.


Aftermath
On December 23, 1942, the Germans had a fully stocked and functional transport hub to move supplies into Stalingrad.  On December 28th, they had a junkyard with burned buildings and a thousand or so corpses.  And Sixth Army, already starving, had lost its only lifeline.

[A]ttempts to restart the airlift after the raid from safer airfields such as Ssalsk, greatly increased the distance to Stalingrad and caused the already meagre airlift effort to collapse. The loss of Tatsinskaya and Morozovskaya airfields, as well as the threat to Heeresgruppe Don’s main lines of communication between Rostov and Tormosin, were the final straws that demolished any hope of saving [Sixth Army].  - Forczyk

Despite pissing off Stalin and getting wounded in 1944, Badanov survived the war and subsequent purges, and among other decorations received the Distinguished Service Cross from the United States.  He died in Moscow in 1971.