underestimated Soviet infantry by 40%, mechanised forces by 300% and the number of tanks as 400 to 1800, instead of the 4000 to 5200 in fact arrayed against them. The German high command (OKH) and Adolf Hitler grossly underestimated the threat to Army Group Centre, confidently redeploying a third of its artillery, half its tank destroyers and 88% of its tanks to the Southern front where OKH expected the Soviet attack. Only 580 German armoured vehicles were in place for the battle. In the battle, Army Group Centre was almost totally destroyed, losing its Fourth Army encircled east of Minsk, its 3rd Panzer Army (LIII Corps encircled in Vitebsk), and its Ninth Army encircled east of Bobruisk. In military historian Bruce Pirnie's view, "the Germans were more completely fooled prior to Operation Bagration than they had been prior to Operation Uranus [at Stalingrad]". Pirnie concluded, based largely on Bagration and Uranus with a look at other Second World War operations, that the Soviet military deception in Bagration was unsophisticated, but "clever and effective". The Soviets succeeded in distorting OKH's intelligence picture, given that German intelligence had to rely mainly on radio intercept, aerial photography and agents left behind in the territory they had once held. Stavka deceived OKH by playing to their three sources of information; Stavka systematically denied the Germans real intelligence on Red Army forces as they concentrated for the attack, and revealed other real and simulated forces in other places. However Stavka may have come to do this, it "played well to the Germans' mental attitude". Hitler's own reckless optimism and determination to hold on to captured territory at all costs encouraged him to believe the picture suggested by the Russians. Meanwhile, his advisors believed the Soviet Union was running out of men and materiel, with much less industrial production than it in fact had. Thus they underestimated the forces ranged against them, a belief encouraged by continued deception operations. Pirnie points out that it did not have to succeed in every aspect to be successful. In Belarus, the German armies involved had a good idea of the locations and approximate timing of Operation Bagration, but the higher levels, Army Group Centre and OKH failed to appreciate how strong the attacks would be, or the intention to encircle the Army Group. The "combination of display and concealment, directed at the highest command levels, typified their most successful