USSR VS.USA

This was proposed in Op Unthinkable - but their "loyalties" were suspect

 

Besides they had already been beaten once

 

While Glantz only periferially discusses logistics and engineering aspects of the Soviet advance in Manchuria in August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria it is very clear from what he does include that the Soviets advanced as far as they could have against, in many cases, little or no opposition. This amounted to an advance of some 400 to 500 km or, about 300 miles.
The Soviet Manchurian campaign does nothing but reinforce my previous assertions that the Rhine was the limit of a Soviet offensive in the West in 1945 - 46.

pg 98

pg 181

 

I tend to agree with you, bat bear in mind this is a What-If thread, isn't it? If so we can agree the Rhine works very well as the boundary for the 1st phase of the offensive.

This is beginning to sound like those awful discussions on NATO-WARPAC on Tank-Net! But then discussions usually ended when everyone agreed that it was simply nukes everywhere in the end (or in the beginning)!

350 kilometers over difficult terrain in three days? Holy mackerel! That's good enough in my book!

What else do you want, from Tahiti to Minneapolis in 30 minutes and back?

Of course there had to be logistical difficulties... Exactly how do you compare the road/rail network in Manchuria, with NW Europe? I tend to believe they are not exactly the same density or quality, or are they?

[ 21. July 2004, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Za Rodina ]

 

Anyone who believes numbers mean everything,needs to watch the movie "Zulu" again.

 

Anyone who believes that the Red Army defeated the Germans because of sheer numbers, then must go back to elementary school…

Or try to tell that to the 17 men that halted for 32 hours 2 German regiments south of Stalingrad in September 1942…

 

Stalin definitely should have watched the film before starting Winter war against the Finns...





But I guess he finally learnt his lesson...

http://www.raatteenportti.fi/photos.html

 

I don't remember seeing "Zulu", but did see "Zulu Dawn". It seems the Zulus didn't do so badly at Isandlhwana or Rorke's Drift, so I don't really see what you mean.

Am I saying numbers mean everything? Come on, I'm too old a wargamer to be caught saying a thing like that When I use my favourite quote "Quantity has a quality all it's own", can't you see my tongue firmly sticking inside my cheek?

Please do read the documents I mentiond a few posts above. Of course for the Manchurian op. the Russians sent a large number of troops, but wouldn't you if you had them available? Would you send an insufficient force if you wanted to win? Even in OIF I heard several times the lament that the US were not "putting enough boots on the ground". So the Soviets made the effort to ensure there were boots enough plus to spares, and they are condemned for it?

On the other hand look at the quality of the command structure. The top men sent were no non-entities, there were names such as Vasilievsky as CinC, Marshals Meretskov and Malinovsky as front commanders, and as army commanders you had names like Belobodorov, Pliev and Chistyakov. These were people who knew what numbers were, and especially how to employ them. We are talking about people fresh from fighting in difficult environments such as Koenigsberg, the Carpathians, and Prague, these were not picked at random. The staffs were chosen for experience in commanding troops in difficult environments, they were the Experten of the time.

But we have more to bear in mind. If I may quote Glantz's preface:
Our view of the war in the east derives from the German experiences of 1941 and 1942, when blitzkrieg exploited the benefits of surprise against a desperate and crudely fashioned Soviet defense. It is the view of a Guderian, a Mellenthin, a Balck, and a Manstein, all heroes of Western military history, but heroes whose operational and tactical successes partially blinded them to strategic realities. By 1943-44, their "glorious" experiences had ceased. As their operational feats dried up after 1942, the Germans had to settle for tactical victories set against a background of strategic disasters. Yet the views of the 1941 conquerors, their early impressions generalized to characterize the nature of the entire war in the east, remain the accepted views. The successors to these men, the Schoeners, the Heinricis, the defenders of 1944 and 1945, those who presided over impending disaster, wrote no memoirs of widespread notoriety, for their experiences were neither memorable nor glorious. Their impressions and those of countless field grade officers who faced the realities of 1944-45 are all but lost.

This imbalanced view of German operations in the east imparts a reassuring, though inaccurate, image of the Soviets. We have gazed in awe at the exploits of those Germans who later wrote their personal apologies, and in doing so we have forgotten the larger truth: their nation lost the war-and lost it primarily in the east against what they portrayed as the "artless" Soviets.

The Soviets are shown under a general umbrella of faceless incompetence, winning every battle by human wave charges, shouting Hurrah, Za Stalina (well, if they didn't then they should ). This is the view as told in a number of German memoirs, but as G. says, these were written in the "good" part of the war, and people has a tendency to forget about bad knews and remember only the good ones. How many German general's memoirs do we have describing the destruction of Army Group Centre (Op. Bagration for the guys who won it)? I have a number of US Army training manuals at home, written post-war by German general officers, and they all tell how smart they were and how could the Russians be so dumb. And this was the official version, the version that stuck! It seems to me these people suffered from severe selective amnesia but Kai can define this better than me.

Another source that will explain this better than I possibly can:
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/fmsopubs/issues/e-front.htm

 

Slow down Za, was'nt directing my comment at you...merely to anyone who thinks shear numbers will always be the victors. I'll read that "documentary" you mentioned this week-end when have more time. "Zulu" is a classic,maybe someone here can describe it better than me.

 

But I am cool, the reason I wrote a longer post than usual was because it was 2:30 am, couldn't sleep so ha dmore time to write, and what's more, to re-read what I had written

Replying to Kai and his Finns, there is no doubt that in lieu of numbers they employed tactical excellence, motivation courage, toughness, you name it!

However the strategic wisdom seems questionable. So the Finns entered World War II in their private version called Continuation War, and advanced to the neighbourhood of Leningrad and elsewhere, recovering from the SU what territory they believed where theirs, and went no further to the eternal annoyance of the Germans. No quarrel so far.

What bugs me was that after that they settled into an attrition war with the Russians (who really had other fish to fry and besides had found this little fishy to be a hard case) and missed a golden opportunity to negotiate an armistice while the Russians were down.

As a consequence, the Russians did not lose, and three years later were able to finish off that unsettled piece of business up north!

Were the Finns so dependent on Germans that they couldn't have a freer hand in designing their own war policy?

I'd like to remove this discussion to the Russia at War zone, as this and previous posts might be better there.

 

Very, very good posts, Miguel!

That's one of my points: the excellence in almost every aspect of the 1945 Red Armed forces.

I'd like to think how would Patton had performed on the field against Zhúkov, Rokossovski or Kóniev? Maybe these tree don't have their own Academy Award-winning films and certainly they're not heroes because they 'were communists'… but if one look at these men's records you'll get quite a surprise. They, along Vasilievski were some of the greatest military minds in all History!

And I think it's worth to mention that Rokossovski was a commander who never wasted his men's lives and who always attacked when the possibilities were on his favour. Some kind of Soviet Bradley and Montgomery.

And numerical superiority does make a difference. It makes a difference since if you have plenty of troops, you can have spare troops to keep the attack flowing against a retreating enemy and not lose the momentum.

How would the war in the western front had been if the British Army could have had as many field armies as in WWI or the US Army could have had some 50 divisions more? Would have Ike thrown into battle ill-equipped and exhausted divisions during the Battle of the Bulge?

 

ZA,

off topic but cant let a slur on the Empire go without rebuke...

Yup the Brits got slaughtered at Isandlhwana but you are utterly wrong about ROrkes Drift...

"The most VC's in a single engagement - This action was at Rorke's Drift, Wednesday 22- Thursday 23 January, 1879, when some 150 soldiers defended a supply station against some 4000 Zulus, aided by the Martini-Henry rifle 'with some guts behind it'."

"At Rorke's Drift, eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded. Seven to the 2nd Battalion, 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot, one to the Army Medical Department, one to the Royal Engineers, one to the Commissariat and Transport Department and one to the Natal Native Contingent."

"n January 1879 the British invaded KwaZulu in South Africa, without the sanction of the Home Government, in a war brought about by the misguided policy of "Confederating" Southern Africa under the direction of the Governor-General Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere. The fiercely indepedent AmaZulu people refused to lay down their arms and accept British rule over the Sovereign Kingdom. The British General Officer Commanding, Lord Chelmsford, despite having abundant military intelligence on the AmaZulu, had a misconceived idea of the fighting prowess of his enemy. The result was that on 22nd January a British force of seventeen hundred strong, was attacked and only some four hundred men, of whom only some eighty Europeans, survived at a place called Isandhlwana.

Prince Dabulamanzi kaMpande commanded an impi, the Undi 'corps' of 4,500. His men had played little part in the action at Isandhlwana, but goaded on by his men, and despite the orders of his brother, King Cetshwayo kaMpande, not to cross the Buffalo River into Natal, he chose to attack the British supply base close to a river crossing known as Rorke's Drift, which the AmaZulu called KwaJimu.

The post was established in a trading store-cum-mission station that consisted of a dwelling house and a chapel, both sturdily built of stone. The house was doing temporary duty as a field hospital, the chapel was full of stores and there were only 104 men who were fit enough to fight. The command of the post had passed to Lieutenant Chard of the Royal Engineers, when Major Henry Spalding of the 104th Regiment left on the morning of the 22nd January. Commanding a company-strength was Lieutenant Bromhead of the 24th Regiment.* James Langley Dalton, a volunteer serving as an Acting Assistant Commissary and a former Staff Sergeant, ordered the construction of barricades connecting the two buildings with sacks of corn, and an inner barricade with biscuit boxes.

When the Zulus attacked, wielding their short stabbing assegais, they were unable to reach the men behind the barricades and they were blasted by rifle fire at point blank range. Most of those who did mount the breastwork were repulsed by the bayonets of the defenders. Some of the Zulus were armed with rifles, purchased from unscrupulous traders, but they were not trained marksmen and the British soldiers were able to pick them off at long range.

After a number of unsuccessful attacks the Zulus set fire to the hospital, burst in and began to spear the patients. A private named Alfred Henry Hook, a Gloucestershire man, kept them at bay with his bayonet while his friend John Williams hacked holes in the wall separating one room from another and dragged the patients through one by one, the last man had dislocated his knee. Williams had to break the other to get him out of a window and into the yard where the barricades offered some protection.

Fighting went on all night in the fitful glare from the blazing hospital as the Zulus made charge after charge on the barricades. Both sides fought with desperate courage. A patient from the hospital, a Swiss born adventurer Christian Ferdnand Schiess, stabbed three Zulus in quick succession after he had clambered over the breastwork. In the yard Surgeon James Henry Reynolds tended to the wounded, oblivious to the life and death struggle going on all around him. Those too badly hurt to shoot propped themselves up as best they could and reloaded the guns, and re-supplied ammunition to those who were still on their feet.

When dawn came at last, the Zulus drew off taking their wounded with them and leaving at least 351 dead around the barricades. Later Lord Chelmsford arrived on the scene with a column of British Soldiers.

Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead were both awarded the Victoria Cross, as were the redoubtable privates Alfred Hook, Frederick Hitch, Robert Jones, William Jones, Corporal Allen, James Langley Dalton and Pte. John Williams. Surgeon Reynolds got the Cross for tending the wounded under fire; and the Swiss volunteer Christian Schiess - the first to a soldier serving with South Africa forces."


Right, sorry, had to get that out of my system...

 

An overheard Stalin on the phone:

- Lavrenti Pavlovich*, is that you? Will you please come into my office tonight and bring your file on this melkoburzhuaznyj. I want to ascertain whether he is a trotsko-fashistskaya giena or what. You and I know that Trotsky went to hide in Mexico and for some reason now this sycophant crops up in the same place. There are no coincidences. I'll keep the tea warm and the vodka cool.

* - L.P.Beria

[ 23. July 2004, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: Za Rodina ]

 

What are you trying to do, spoil a good argument with the truth???

 

Sorry Za....

 

No worry, I won't hold it against you

 

Which melkoburzhuaznyj was this Koba?

 

Which melkoburzhuaznyj was this Koba? </font>[/QUOTE]Well, I meant the vrag naroda I was replying to, obviously.

Anyway, it was nice of you in remembering my old nom de guerre from the early years. Not many of your ilk left, I wonder why...

 

I have the solution! This plan which was suggested in "Cold War Hot" by P. Tsouras exploits a fundamental element of Russian culture - getting drunk! ...

On the eve of a suprise attack by the western allies - millions of gallons of vodka are air dropped onto Soviet lines all over the front. Without being able to resist themselves (and officers either joining or unable to control the troops) whole divisions become completely intoxicated (after years of rationing the drink - the average Russian would be dancing with glee). As commincations, organization break down all along the Soviet lines, and mass confusion and drunkenness ensues - the Allies strike. Soviet pilots cannot man planes - tankers are too drunk to operate equipment. With enough speed (and subsequent Vodka drops) the allies win an overwhelming and decisive victory.

 

sorry, double post...

[ 29. July 2004, 10:50 AM: Message edited by: Za Rodina ]