Russian WW2 interesting stats and facts

Problems can be "interesting" sometimes...

"In June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Roosevelt immediately announced the extension of Lend Lease to this new victim of aggression. If Catholics supported this policy, did it mean they were cooperating with Communism, which had been condemned in 1937 in Divini Redemptoris? In a radio address from Washington funded by the State Department, Bishop Joseph Hurley of St. Augustine, a former Vatican official, drew the distinction between cooperation with Communism and aid to the “Russian” people. This created some public controversy among the American bishops, but the Vatican ultimately adopted Hurley’s position as its own."

America Magazine - A Pope in Wartime

 

The March 1941 report by the War Economy and Armaments Office appended to a letter sent by Keitel to the OKH. This report warned that, even if the Caucasus oil fields could be captured intact, very little oil ( even 10,000 tons per month ) could be carried over land to Germany. Moreover, even if the Black Sea could be made safe for shipping, there would be no ships available for the transport of Caucasus oil up the Danube, because river tankers on the Danube were already working to capacity transporting Rumanian oil.

Stopped at Stalingrad by Hayward

 

The losses being sustained at the front were enormous. Hovever, the scale was unpredented. Thw scale of the mobilization being undrtaken within the Soviet Union was unprecented. on 22 June the Red Army had a pool of some 14 million men who had previously received some military training which could be mobilized for service. Their training was often rudimentary, but they provided for the addional reservists. they provided an incedrble depth to the Red Army. on the first day almost invisible to German intelligence estimates. On the first day of Barbarossa the Red Army comprised 5.5. million men, yet by 1 July when the first phase of the moilication was complete, the Soviet armed forces numbered 9,638,000 men. Only 3,533,000 of these Soviet Armed forces were at the front, and another 5,562,000 were concentrating in the military districts. In July the Red Army added thirteeen new field Armies, and fourteen more in August. In September there was one new Army and in October four, and in in November and December eight. Making a total of forty new Soviet Armies in just six months.

Kiev 1941

Stahel

 

Add to those figures the number of women and children mobilised by the Soviets to replenlish their ranks. Go through a village, grab a teenager (or a dozen) give them a SMG and tell them, "Hop on tanki."

 

I think, as in the beginning the Soviets started moving the factories to Siberia, there was lesser military produduction for some 3-4 months, maybe more.That was a huge operation.

 

It certainly gave the Soviets experience in moving large things fast. Worked for them when they "liberated" Manchuria and looted everything whether Japanese owned or not to haul off to their Socialist Workers' Paradise.

One thing they didn't get was a huge milling machine. Our GIs who were PoWs dump it into freshly poured cement that was supposed to be a foundation for the milling machine. The GIs then smoothed it over and dumped the excess cement so the sabotage could not be discovered. The Japanese factory people were confused about its disasppearance and knew the GIs couldn't possibly have stolen it. Read about it in Never Plan Tomorrow.

 

The Soviets sent everything into the the fire to stop the the fascists. " Kill at least one German before you die". For more questions I am open to answer as well as I can.

 

September 18 Jodl told me ( General Walter Warlimont ) over the phone that the night before Stalin himself had rung Ribbentrop from Moscow and reproached him bitterly because, according to information from his military attache , German forces intended to hold on to the oil area of Drohobycz in South Poland. This, he said, was a violation of the demarcation line laid down in the secret annexe to the 23 August Treaty.

Fron Inside Hitlers HQ 1939-1945 by General Walter Warlimont

 

Sevastopol/Kerch and supplies winter 1941:

The Kerch straits froze over twice during the winter 1941-42, allowing Soviet engineers to build an ice road. During the 27 days this ice road was open-28 December to 1 January, and 20 January to 11 February-they sent across to the Kerch peninsula an impressive amount of men and material, icluding 96,618 well-equipped troops, 23,903 horses, 6,513 motor vehicles, and hundreds of artillery pieces. If Manstein hoped to recapture this region with his exhausted army ( many companies were without commissioned officers and had only 40 or 50 men out of normal complement of 150 to 200 ), he clearly had a fight on his hands.

Stopped at Stalingrad
Joel S.A. Hayward

 

Soviet escape from Tallinn.

The worst tragedy in the history of the Soviet Navy

Baltic Fleet commanders were well aware that since July, the Germans and the Finns had been busy mining the Gulf of Finland, but they did nothing to rectify the situation. In the end, the minefields through which the Soviet ships had to pass became the main cause of the tragedy.


In the course of the three days that the Tallinn crossing took to complete, the Baltic Fleet lost from 50 to 62 ships, including destroyers, submarines, minesweepers, patrol boats, coast-guard boats, and torpedo boats. However, most of the lost ships (over 40) were transport and auxiliary vessels. For their part, the Germans lost 10 aircraft.

The operation led to the deaths of between 11,000 and 15,000 people. In addition to civilians, they included many soldiers of the 10th Rifle Corps and sailors, who had invaluable combat experience in fighting for Estonia.

 

Fliebig´s corps-indeed,the entire fleet-had performed as well as could be expected in recent weeks, given its logistical diffuculties, limited resources, mounting attrition rate, vast combat zone, and wide range of tasks. Still, Richthofen was right;the Luftwaffe´s performance had dropped . Between 5 and 12 September, for instance, Luftlotte 4 conducted 7,507 sorties ( an average of 938 per day ),. When Blau had commenced almost three months earlier, the fleet was conducting around 10,750 in the same number of dys ( a daily average of 1,343 ). The main reasons for this substantial operational decrease were a quicker-than-expected consumption of reserve stocks of spare parts and equipment, supply difficulties, and high attrition rates. When Blau began, the fleet possessed approximately 1,600 aircraft, of which over 1,150 were operational.After eleven weeks of nonstop operations, with insufficient replacement aircraft and spare parts arrriving at forward airfields, it now possessed about 950 planes, a mere 550 of them opertional. That is, the fleet´s total strength had decreased by 40% and its operational rate by 14% ( from 71 to 57 ). Its bomber fleet had been hardest hit, mainly due to VVS fighter attacks and a lack of engine parts. Back in June, the air fleet had 480 bombers, 323 of which were operational. On 20 September, it had no more than 232,only 129 of them airworthy.

Stopped at Stalingrad
By Joel S.A. Hayward

 

Under the new Stavka Directive No 1, issued on 15 July 1941, the field armies were mada smaller, and rifle and mechanized corps were eliminated altogether. The field armies now typically controlled only five or six rifle divisions, two or three tank brigades, one or two light cavalry divisions and a number of artillery regiments. The authorized strength of rifle divisions shrank from 14,500 men to 11,000, while allocations of artillery dropped 24% and trucks 64%.

Kiev 1941
By David Stahel

 

One of the more curious operations during these frontier battles was the raid into East Prussia by the Podlaska Cavalry Brigade on the evening of 2/3 September along a quiet eastern front sector of the Eastern Prussia front. The raid was the only Polish operation on German soil;and there were even a few small clashes with German territorial Landwehr units before the Poles withdrew.

Poland 1939 by Steven Zaloga

 

From the middle of July AGS was increasingly able to assert its dominance in the Ukraine. Kleist´s motorized formations pressed their advantage, striking south-east to effect an encirclement with the hard-pressed infantry divisions of the 17th Army. This was to be Rundstedt´s first large-scale strategic victory, but it took until early August for the trap to be shut, and even then it ensared only 103,000 Soviet soldiers. The encirclement at Uman eliminated the bulk of two Soviet Armies ( Sixthh and Twlfth ).

Kiev 1941 by David Stahel

 

Stalingrad supply flights and other means the last days before the pocket was closed by the Red Army....

Elements of the ground personnel, which are supposed to transfer in vehicle formations, can no longer cross the Don Bridge at Kalach and must, therefore, return to Pitomnik, within the closing pocket. Indeed, several German squadrons and a Rumanian squadron carried or dropped fuel, ammunitions, and rations to several isolated Rumanian formations, including the combat group headed by General Mihail Lascar. Lascar´s men certainly needed these supplies;few had eaten properly since Uranus began on 19 November, and all were short of ammunition. Refusing to let his men retreat or accept repeated Soviet calls to surrender, Lascar fought defiantly until his group was finally overwhelmed and he was taken prisoner on the 23rd. He probably learned that Hitler had rewarded his courage with the KC with oak leaves, the first awarded to a non-German.

Stopped at Stalingrad by Joel S.A. Hayward

 

Demyansk Pocket - Wikipedia

After being assured that the pocket could be supplied with its daily requirement of 300 short tons (270 t) of supplies[2] by Luftflotte 1, Hitler ordered that the surrounded divisions hold their positions until relieved. The pocket contained two viable airfields at Demyansk and Peski capable of receiving transport aircraft. From the middle of February, the weather improved significantly, and while there was still considerable snow on the ground at this time, resupply operations were generally very successful due to inactivity of the VVS in the area.[2] However, the operation did use up all of Luftflotte 1's transport capability, as well as elements of its bomber force.

The success of the Luftwaffe convinced Reich Marschall Hermann Göring and Hitler that they could conduct effective airlift operations on the Eastern front.[8] Furthermore, it "determined Hitler in his belief that encircled troops should automatically hold on to their territory.[10]

 

My grandfather was with the 58th Infantry Division in the rearguard that was the last to leave the Demyansk pocket in March 1943 - having already spent the entire winter of 1942 fighting in the Volchov battles.
When the division finally lay near Leningrad again, there were only 15 men left in his company from the soldiers who had marched into France in 1940

Zocher, Ernst - TracesOfWar.com

 

Winter storm and Stalingrad: Hoth´s counter-attack

Indeed, tha attack had surprised the Soviet Command, and only the quick thinking of Vasilevskii, the chief of the Red Army´s general staff, prevented their forces between Kotelnikovo and the pocket from collapsing. As soon as he learned of the attack, Vasilevskii emphatically insisted to the unconvinced Stalin that he must transfer the crack Second Guards Army from the Don Front to the Stalingrad front in order to block Hoth´s advance. Stalin finally relented to his repeated appeals early the next morning and authorized the transfer. Until that army arrived a few days later, Hoth´s division´s were able steadily to bulldoze their way forward.

Stopped at Stalingrad by Joel S.A. Hayward

 

It has been estimated that by the second half of October 1942 more than 75% of Stalingrad defenders-the equivalent of nine divisions- were destroyed, yet still the survivors continued to resist. Richard Overy, in "Russia´s War", put it simply: " How the Red Army survived defies military explanation".

Stalingrad-How the Red Army triumphed by Michael K Jones