Russian WW2 interesting stats and facts

More ostfront pics...

 

Some nice pics of Finnish generals and Dietl in Lapland. From a photo album in a local net auction I am trying to win....

Aijaa.com - 5529474.jpg

Aijaa.com - 5529484.jpg

 

Some more photos.


English Russia » WW2 Memories

 

Some pics again...

 

Some advice on weapon handling in cold temperature:

"Moscow Tram Stop" Heinrich Haape 1957 copy:

A few tricks from the book to keep your MG´s prepared for fight in minus 40 degrees Celsius:

1. Keep the MG gun in the oven of the enarby house and once the attack starts get the gun. When you shoot with it it keeps itself warm.

2. Pour some gasoline over the moving parts and set it on fire. After a while the weapon is ready for firing.

 

Finnish Waffen-SS men in Ostfront autum-winter 42-43

 

From the same photo-album as above...

 

Russia Blog: Poisonous Myths of the Eastern Front

MYTH II: The Russians just threw billions of soldiers without rifles in front of German machine guns.
REALITY: The vast majority of German soldiers were killed, taken POW or otherwise incapacitated on the Eastern front. The Soviet to Axis loss ratio was 1.3:1 and the USSR outproduced Germany in every weapons system throughout the war.
According to meticulous post-Soviet archival work (G. I. Krivosheev in Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses), the total number of men (and in the Soviet case, about 1mn women) who passed through the armed forces of the USSR was 34,476,700 and through Germany's was 21,107,000. Of these, the "irrevocable losses" (the number of soldiers who were killed in military action, went MIA, became POWs and died of non-combat causes) was 11,285,057 for the USSR, 6,231,700 for Germany, 6,923,700 for Germany and its occupied territories, and 8,649,500 for all the Axis forces on the Eastern Front. Thus, the total ratio of Soviet to Nazi military losses was 1.3:1. Hardly the stuff of "Asiatic hordes" of Nazi and Russophobic imagination (that said, also contrary to popular opinion, Mongol armies were almost always a lot smaller than those of their enemies and they achieved victory through superior mobility and coordination, not numbers).
The problem is that during the Cold War, the historiography in the West was dominated by the memoirs of Tippelskirch, who wrote in the 1950’s citing constant Soviet/German forces ratios of 7:1 and losses ratio of 10:1. This has been carried over into the 1990’s (as with popular "historians" like Anthony Beevor), although it should be noted that more professional folks like Richard Overy are aware of the new research. Note also that cumulatively 28% and 57% of all Soviet losses were incurred in 1941 and 1942 (Krivosheev) respectively - the period when the Soviet army was still relatively disorganized and immobile, whereas for the Germans the balance was roughly the opposite with losses concentrated in 1944-45.
The idea that there were two soldiers for every rifle in the Red Army, as portrayed in the ahistorical propaganda film Enemy at the Gates, is a complete figment of the Russophobic Western imagination. From 1939 to 1945, the USSR outproduced Germany in aircraft (by a factor of 1.3), tanks (1.7), machine guns (2.2), artillery (3.2) and mortars (5.5), so in fact if anything the Red Army was better equipped than the Wehrmacht (sources - Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won; Chris Chant, Small Arms).

 

Bodies and armored train...

 

Eastern front and the Finnish line 1941-42

 

The Soviets lost far more equipment however.

For example in 1944 Germany lost only 2406 combat aircraft in the eastern front, while performing nearly 380,000 sorties, a loss rate of only 0,7%(1). While the Russians lost about 26 thousand (2). A ratio of loss of 10 to 1 was about the same as in 1941.

Since fighters only made up about 13% of all aircraft in the eastern front in 1944 (400 out of 3000 (1)). Most of those 380,000 sorties were made by ground attack/bomber aircraft, so the germans must have bombed heavily the Russians. But it didn't help to reduce their fast rate of advance.

Also, German total combat aircraft losses in 1944 were only 12,000 (1) out of a total production of 35,600. While soviet combat aircraft losses were 26,000 out of a production of 33,000.

Also, German fighter losses in the first half of 1944 were a little more than 4,000 aircraft (3), apparently their losses in the second half of the year were not much larger, annual fighter losses must have been around 8,000-9,000. While production was nearly 30,000. Why this discrepancy? Because they didn't have the pilots and the fuel to use the aircraft. Hence, Germany lost airsuperiority in the western front due to lack of pilots and fuel, not lack of industrial capacity to produce the equipment needed to maintaim it.

(1) http://www.lesbutler.ip3.co.uk/jg26/thtrlosses.htm
(2) Krivosheev
(3) Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945

 

Some pics from the eastern Front...

 

More pics...

 

And yet more....

 

And another lot from one of my new photo albums...these from Kiestinki Lappland part of fighting

 

More pics....Enjoy!

 

And some more pics...

 

More excellent photos Kai.

 

More pics....

 

Eastern front and corpses and battle field pics...