By mid-August, Adolf Hitler understood that the forthcoming Soviet offensive could not be contained on the open steppe and ordered construction of a series of fortifications along the line of the Dnieper river.

This option was supported by Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Deputy Chief of Staff Aleksei Antonov, who considered the substantial losses after the Battle of Kursk.

This option left no additional time for the German defenders, but would lead to much larger casualties than would a successful deep operation breakthrough.

This second option was backed by Stalin due to the concern that the German "scorched earth" policy might devastate this region if the Red Army did not advance fast enough.

Stavka also paid high attention to the possible scorched earth activities of German forces with a view to preventing them by a rapid advance.

The preparation of the crossing equipment was further complicated by the German scorched earth strategy with the total destruction of all boats and raft building material in the area.

The order to construct the Dnieper defence complex, known as "Ostwall" or "Eastern Wall", was issued on 11 August 1943 and immediately began to be executed.

Additionally, on 7 September 1943, the SS forces and the Wehrmacht received orders to implement a scorched earth policy, by stripping the areas they had to abandon of anything that could be used by the Soviet war effort.

After a few inconclusive days that greatly slowed down the Soviet offensive, Marshal Konev decided to bypass the city and rush towards the Dnieper.

The 3rd Tank Army, plunging headlong, reached the river on the night of 21–22 September and, on 23 September, Soviet infantry forces crossed by swimming and by using makeshift rafts to secure small, fragile bridgeheads, opposed only by 120 German Cherkassy flak academy NCO candidates and the hard-pressed 19th Panzer Division Reconnaissance Battalion.

The Soviets, sensing a critical juncture, ordered a hasty airborne corps assault to increase the size of the bridgehead before the Germans could counterattack.

The arrival of personnel at the airfields was slow, necessitating, on 23 September, a one-day delay and omission of 1st Brigade from the plan; consequent mission changes caused near chaos in command channels.

Mission change orders finally got down to company commanders, on the 24 September, just 15 minutes before their units, not yet provisioned with spades, anti-tank mines, or ponchos for the autumn night frosts, assembled on airfields.

Units (still arriving by the overtaxed rail system), were loaded piecemeal onto returned aircraft, which were slow to refuel owing to the less-than-expected capacities of fuel trucks.

As corps elements made their flights, troops (half of whom had never jumped, except from training towers) were briefed on drop zones, assembly areas and objectives only poorly understood by platoon commanders still studying new orders.

Meanwhile, Soviet aerial photography, suspended for several days by bad weather, had missed the strong reinforcement of the area, early that afternoon.

Some paratroopers began returning fire and throwing grenades even before landing; trailing aircraft accelerated, climbed and evaded, dropping wide.

On the ground, the Germans used white parachutes as beacons to hunt down and kill disorganized groups and to gather and destroy airdropped supplies.

Back at the Soviet airfields, the fuel shortage allowed only 298 of 500 planned sorties, leaving corps anti-tank guns and 2,017 paratroops undelivered.

Of 4,575 men dropped (seventy percent of the planned number, and just 1,525 from 5th Brigade), some 2,300 eventually assembled into 43 ad hoc groups, with missions abandoned as hopeless, and spent most of their time seeking supplies not yet destroyed by the Germans.

The Germans deemed their anti-paratrooper operations completed by the 26th, although a modicum of opportunistic actions against garrisons, rail lines, and columns were conducted by remnants up to early November.

The Germans called the operation a fundamentally sound idea ruined by the dilettantism of planners lacking expert knowledge (but praised individual paratroopers for their tenacity, bayonet skills, and deft use of broken ground in the sparsely wooded northern region).

When Soviet aviation became more organized and hundreds of guns and Katyusha rocket launchers began firing, the situation started to improve and the bridgehead was eventually preserved.

By mid-October, the forces accumulated on the lower Dnieper bridgeheads were strong enough to stage a first massive attack to definitely secure the river's western shore in the southern part of the front.

The Rail War operation staged during September and October 1943 struck German logistics very hard, creating heavy supply issues.