Soviet blunders in World War 2

I've also read that the German army in early WW2 was trained for the attack rather than the defence. It seems to be a standard for all armies that are expecting to fight short wars and win. And in all cases it turned out badly!

 

It´s not just a question of training, I think, but also the vey spirit of the training and preparations. Both armies in June 1941 were-attack only armies. Any thought about a possible retreat was ideologically wrong.
Both adversaries were so convinced of their superiority, that to prepare for a defence would be to implicitly say: they can stop us. For Hitler it would be a suicidal proposition, not being prepared for a long war. For Stalin and his entourage it wa (arythmetically) impossible, with their crushing superiority in numbers of everything.
It may be one of real secret of Stalin´s initial defeat: his belief that quantity transforms authomatically into quality.

Tiso, those new developments (all of them very significant) did not come out of nothing. They were a consequence of long preparations. Besides, in 1939 Stalin decided to go over to the last phase of war preparations, due to his successful political and diplomatic successes. Within two years Europe was to be his.

 

Which shows a lack of study of recent history. Why did he think the 'Russian Steamroller' performed so bady in WW1?
Lack of true Communist zeal? :roll:

 

Izaak Stern wrote:

The overwhelming numerical and material superiority of the Red Army occurred in mid to late war (after massive US support). In the German offensive in '41 the relative sizes of the forces were much closer.

 

Much closer is a relative term in this context. IIRC the Soviets had at least double the number of divisions available to the Germans, possibly approching triple. This is not counting those guarding against the Japanese, or defending various other frontiers.

And, partly from national pride ( ), partly from adherance to the facts, Britain & the Commonwealth / Empire also pumped equipment into Russia (though not quite as much as the Americans did), and manned most of the convoys taking it across.

 

*Ahem*

Having done a bit of reseach to back up my wild claims, I discovered this:

"Over 3 million German soldiers and 3300 tanks cross the Russian border. The Wehrmarcht (German Army) is organized into three Army Groups . Facing them is the world's largest army comprised of 230 divisions of 14,000 men each, with 20,000 tanks"

Now, acccording to my mathematics, 230 * 14,000 = 3,220,000
which is just over 3 million.

Sorry Grieg.

 

Ricky wrote:

Hehe..accurate numbers can be difficult to obtain especially regarding the USSR but you must be "in the balllpark" as they say( relatively close) with the figures you quote.. The quality of the Soviets divisions and certainly their armor at this stage of the war was highly suspect also.

 

I have read that large numbers of the BT tanks broke down during the advance into Poland.

Mind you, that don't prove much about conditions 2 years later.

The areas where the CCCP did have a numerical advantage are the number of tanks (but they were dispersed) and the number of aircraft (which were out-of-date compared to German aircraft). Oh well.

 

The vast majority of Russian tanks were light and fast; not much use when you're facing an enemy who is preferrably behind you, and equally fast, but heavier, and you're defending.

Stalin does have a point that numbers have an inherent quality of their own, but you'll still lose if these numbers don't embody anything real, like training. Or if your numbers don't substantially outnumber the enemy, which was the case in 1941...

 

3.2 million red army troops stationed in the western areas of ussr. total strength of red army as whole on june 2 1941 is put at 4.7million troops these include troops stationed in siberia facing the manchu army of japan those in north around finland and those in south along the trukish boder areas.

 

I don´t have exact numbers at hand right now, where I am, but I can´t help commenting a bit from my point of view:

Not only was RKKA´s numbers of tanks crushing vs. Wehrmacht´s. Even if/though Soviet airplanes were inferior (not to mention the truly disastrous quality of pilots), the numbers of planes were huge. More than enough (in RKKA´s opinion) to annihilate Luftwaffe on the ground in case of Soviet surprise attack, and not counting 1 million soldiers trained in air desant, many of which were to attack German airports.

The number of troops seems low, but let me remind you that as of Dec. ´41, RKKA lost 8 million soldiers (POWs incl.), so the numbers on the border the 22th June was just a nucleus or a "shell" to be filled with mobilized, militarily trained reservists.

The disproportion in artillery was also significant in RKKA´s favor.

As to the tanks, the light and very fast BTs and the about 9 thousand T26, in case of surprise Soviet attack were destined to strike deep into Germany. Don´t forget, please, about the numerous amphibious tanks (well over 3 thousand), ready to pass any reiver in Central and Western Europe, creating bridgeheads where bridges would have been destroyed.

Technical specifications of Soviet tanks, even the older models were comparable with the German tanks.
The difference was in professionalism of crews, but first and foremost in surprise factor, which changed a mass of steel and men ready to flood the Continent (not so orderly as the counterpart, but still - in a convincing way, IMHO), into a wild mob trying to save themselves somehow.

And it is very difficult to carry out even a retreat without a piece of map of own territory (which, of course nobody had i RKKA): go and try to move thousands of men and machinery without a map, Gents. My Grandy has been through the hell of it, that´s why I know.

 

questioning every ones loyalty and killing high ranking plus using his troops like thursday's trash