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WWII, V-E Day: The War in Numbers versus The War of Numbers

Discussion in 'Eastern Europe' started by Arusha, May 7, 2019.

  1. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    Hi, there. I have posted a fairly controvesial essay so that to capture WWII Casualty Statistics reflectiing on the Red Army's and Wehrmacht's (including the satellite armies) losses sustained over 22 June 1941 - 9 May 1945 period, and that also includes references to The Soviet Experience in World War Two by JT Dykman, The Eisenhower Institute, Washington, D.C. Look foward to hearing feedback, if any.
    WWII: The War of Numbers” versus The War in Numbers
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2019
  2. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    What about it is controversial? That seems an odd term to use when your object is to "capture WWII Casualty Statistics".
     
  3. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    Yes, Sir. Reads kind of misnomer of sorts. The "billigerent casualty statistics" issue is often viewed in terms of an invitation to debate it. The German Wehrmacht would report and file a loss only when a piece was destroyed beyond repair. The Red Army would report every hardware disabling event. Subsequently, the German reports would show one and the same piece in service despite multiple battle-related workshop jobs performed. The Red Army reports would show operational availability or unavailabilty in terms of losses as many times as it happened or in terms of separate losses accounted for. Hence is this huge difference in the materiel/personnel performance reports. In a nutshell, every disablng hit was a "kill", according to the Russians. Non-lethal hits did not always qualify for "kills" (losses/casualties), according to the Germans.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2019
  4. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    For aircraft I remember someone giving a break down of the German system and damage could be rated in a number of categories from essentially minor damage up to loss of the plane. I would assume they had a similar system for other vehicles. Kind of surprised the Soviets didn't do the same. Or did they? If a T-34 was damaged and then repaired and returned to service what was listed as it source?
     
  5. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    I can only quote from the philosophy or general policy (party) lines maintaining the precedence of the current objective as assigned in terms of the military operations in progress: deny, protect and kill AT ALL COSTS. Where a piece is unavailable for service, it is a kill regardless of what follows next. Every CO in the field reported things subject to "AS IS" rules.

    A Russian (Soviet) air force fighter pilot could be court-martialed for engaging an enemy aircraft if/when aborting the bomber-escort mission for a lucrative target. The German pilots always had a free hand so that to make a decision whether to go into action or not, depending on the risks involved, exposure or other opportunities.

    Same attitude applied across the mounted combat battlefields: mission assigned – mission accomplished. Hence is sense of humor in the description of the armored fighting vehicles: common grave for the crew of (3, 4, 5… ) Differences in GAAP policies.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2019
  6. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    As for the source, it is a good question because everything belonged to the State; therefore, the State was the source.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2019
  7. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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  8. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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  9. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    Soviet numbers are always suspect...Stalin did not like the outcome of the 1937 census. So another one was conducted in 1939, and the Soviet population "grew" by about 10 million people.

    130 million is a low number, but 196 million is too high. Even with the recently "annexed" Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Polish territories.

    Further, the number of divisions is meaningless without context, and their is no context in the article. The number of troops in a division varies from nation to nation, and even division to division.
     
  10. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    Yes, Sir. Hear-Hear. Likewise, all numbers, Soviet, German, British, American, French..etc. can always be suspect, in accordance with: THERE ARE NO PERMANENT FRIENDS OR PERMANENT ENEMIES. THERE ARE PERMANENT INTERESTS. As for Stalin, sure enough, they did not like the outcome of the 1937 census: primarily, they hated the numbers showing that a vast majority of people stll identified themeselves as the Orthoodox Christians and/or Muslims/or followers of other religious traditions (Militant Atheism rules the World, today, and without Stalin: did I say something wrong?) Nevertheless, this is the generally accepted statistical number whether someone agrees or disagrees therewth. 130 million stands for the number of ethnic Russians within the USSR. The Civil War and Great Famines (1918-1920, 1932-33) took their toll as well: close to 10 million. Before 1917 revolutions, the population of Russia was 180 million. In 1939, the USSR population totaled close to 170 million. With the Soviet Union's westward expansion over 1939 - 1940 periods, the population accounted for 194 million, but not 130 million - the mistake is too bad to ignore it. Please also look further into the same story for division numbers in terms of troops and equipment, benchmarked. And again, those numbers are in accordance with the books and field regulations whereas in real life the actual numbers would always be "AS IS or "AS WAS". Where it boils down to German versus Soviet or Soviet versus German divisions in terms of strength thereof; those numbers would be equal, more or less, again, depending on how badly a particular division was beaten or bled white. Just as Truman said on 22 June 1941, about the Russians killing the Germans and the Germans killing the Russians, the more the better, for him to choose.
     
  11. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    Stalin didn't like the 37 census, because it showed 162 million instead of his predicted 180 million.

    The religion issue was secondary...They just reworded the questionairre. Nobody changed their beliefs.
     
  12. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    ??? Irrelevent to the topic at hand as far as I can see.
    Or not. Equipment can be "deadlined" but still useable in some cricumstances. That's why most if not all military organizations qualify different levels of damage or even different types of "kills".
    Just what do you think the '"AS IS" rules' are?
    And this is relevant to the current topic how?
    ???? This is only marginally coherent if that and as far as I can see irrelevant to the questions asked.
     
  13. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    I guess I need to clarify a bit. In most if not all military organizations the unit is responsible for it's equipment. If say a company has 10 tanks when it's brought up to full strength it receives 10 tanks from higher ups and ultimately from the factory. If a tank is destroyed it should eventually receive a replacement. If it is damaged or breaks down then if it can be repaired at a low enough level it's repaired and put back into service by the company. If it requires more extensive repairs it's sent to a higher level repair organization and repaired and reissued to someone in the mean time the company is ideally issued a new vehicle. If you just consider a damaged tank a kill how is it accounted for? It matters a fair amount to the organization at all sorts of levels as to whether it's irreparable, repairable at or near the field, or needs to be repaired in a rear area. If you just write off any vehicle that has been disabled then vehicles may accumulate in an organization. If you consider a repaired vehicle a "new" vehicle because it was written off as "killed" then you production statistics get really messed up. So how was this handled by the Red Army?
     
  14. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    The capitalized sentence has essentially no relevance to the question asked or the preceding verbiage.
    Both irrelevant and inaccurate.
    "Wrong"? I guess that depends on whether you view irrelevant and or inaccurate statements as "wrong". Certainly not of particular merit or utility.
    Capitalizing a meaningless phrase doesn't really make it any more meaningful.
    So they would be equal except in that they weren't.
    That's not quite what he said though is it? For one thing his English was a bit more grammatically correct not to mention there's considerably more to the quote. In any case it is again completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
     
  15. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    Yes, irrelevant, apologies for misread, if anything. 1. Just a line below would be relevant, I believe, with reference to the State as the source. 2. The WWII logistics is not something I would try and expand on, let alone offering an opinion. 3. AS IS versus AS WAS in terms of killing and/or getting killed: check out the experiences of the hand-to-hand combat survivors: hell breaking loose. 4. The religion issue has always been primary, today as well. When they saw those boxes checked, they knew they did not have any control. Massive campaign against the Church, the Priests and communities was unleashed immediately. Elsewhere (outside Russia), the issue has been resolved without violence, as you may know, the drive is on to this day. But I won't dig into it, it is always personal. 5. As for the divisions, stats,numbers etc.: life is life and books are books. Just tried to use several real-life-examples to show more colors apart from black- white shots. My apologies for failing to give goood answers, I know nothing except that I know nothing. 6. As for the statistics versus census numbers, there are no secrets,...these issues have long been studied and debated with proffesional answers available in public domain.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2019
  16. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word.” Hope this English is more grammatically correct. "the Russians killing the Germans and the Germans killing the Russians, the more the better, for him to choose," I can see no errors, except for preferential treatment; though the meaning is the same. I suggest we drop it.
     
  17. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Care to explain why you think so?
    Without at least some knowledge and understanding of logistics you aren't going to be able to really understand many of the statistics kept by the various militaries.
    Taking a pair of words and capitalizing them doesn't do much to improve the coherence or give them meaning. The quote above I lacking in both coherence and meaning
    Important I'll grant primary not so much.
    ?????
    ??? Census numbers are statistics! Not at all sure what you are trying to say here.
     
  18. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    1) If you say someone said something you should actually use their words to use your own is misleading at best.
    2) You should also quote enough so as to make their meaning clear. The quote above in green does that.
    3) The meaning or at least the implications are certainly different. Especially when you consider the time period. 2 years previously Germany had attack Poland while the USSR had attacked Finland and Poland. Both in violation of treaties. Stalin's regime was actually the more murderous at the time. He's not talking about Germans and Russians but the Nazi regime and the Soviet regime. So let me reiterated the meaning is not the same.

    I'm still not sure why you thought it was relevant to the topic at hand. Have you been taking lessons from poppy?
     
  19. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    Sir, you are going personal. With all due respect, and I do respect you and your opinions. Nevertheless, I'd like to reteriate, let's drop it. Concerning the education issues, please see the following: The Evils of War in Retrospect
    There have been many teachers in the history....
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2019
  20. Arusha

    Arusha Member

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    Further to your history references, please see the following. Just out of curiosity.
    The Uncle Joe Falcons
     

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