our plans".) Soviet leadership and manpower The primary Soviet leader was Timoshenko, a veteran of World War I and the Russian Civil War. Timoshenko had achieved some success at the Battle of Smolensk in 1941 but was eventually defeated. Timoshenko orchestrated the victory at Rostov during the winter counter-attacks and more success in the spring offensive at Kharkov before the battle itself. Overseeing the actions of the army was Military Commissar Nikita Khrushchev. The average Soviet soldier suffered from inexperience. With the Soviet debacle of the previous year ameliorated only by the barest victory at Moscow, most of the original manpower of the Red Army had been killed, wounded or captured by the Germans, with casualties of almost 1,000,000 just from the Battle of Moscow. The typical soldier in the Red Army was a conscript and had little to no combat experience, and tactical training was practically nonexistent. Coupled with the lack of trained soldiers, the Red Army also began to suffer from the loss of Soviet industrial areas, and a temporary strategic defence was considered necessary. The General Chief of Staff, Marshal Vasilevsky, recognised that the Soviet Army of 1942 was not ready to conduct major offensive operations against the well-trained German army, because it did not have quantitative and qualitative superiority and because leadership was being rebuilt after the defeats of 1941. (This analysis is retrospective and is an analysis of Soviet conduct during their strategic offensives in 1942, and even beyond, such as Operation Mars in October 1942 and the Battle of Târgul Frumos in May 1944.) German preparations Unknown to the Soviet forces, the German 6th Army, under the newly appointed General Paulus, was issued orders for Operation Fredericus on 30 April 1942. This operation was to crush the Soviet armies within the Izyum salient south of Kharkov, created during the Soviet spring offensives in March and April. The final directive for this offensive, issued on 30 April, gave a start date of 18 May. The Germans had made a major effort to reinforce Army Group South, and transferred Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, former commander of Army Group Center during Operation Barbarossa and Operation Typhoon. On 5 April 1942, Hitler issued Directive 41, which made the south the main area of operations under Case Blue, the summer campaign, at the expense of the other fronts. The divisions of Army Group South were brought up to