The Soviet-German War 1941-1945: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Farnsworth, Jul 12, 2022.

  1. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Was going to post this to a thread, but forgot which one and even which board the discussion was on, so I'll just make it a thread, lol. It's about 'the other half of the war', the battles the Soviets never mention or brag about.

    The Soviet-German War 1941-1945: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay

    by David M. Glantz

    https://dokumen.tips/documents/soviet-german-war-1941-45.html?page=2

    Not a big fan of his spin on the Soviet contribution, but the pdf is of some historical interest for its dates and descriptions of the battles.
     
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  2. zoom_copter66

    zoom_copter66 Well-Known Member

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    If wasn't for Lend Lease....Sovs were finished.
     
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  3. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    And before that the Brits saved them from collapse with a nick of time aid shipment that likely saved Moscow.
     
  4. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

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    This was an excellent read. Thank you! Explain to me why you think he "spun" the Soviet contribution. I always love to hear what other people think about WW2. It is a passion of study for me.
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2022
  5. AARguy

    AARguy Well-Known Member

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    WWII shaped the world I grew up in Both my parents were Army Officers in WWII. My uncle was on Eisenhower's Special Staff. I grew up watching WWII movies. As a result of WWII, the USA was the only industrialized nation left intact and our economy boomed. I ended up a career Soldier myself and often reflect on these things.
    How things have changed.
     
  6. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    A number of reasons, beginning with his not giving the massive Soviet minefields their due credit for stopping the German advances short of the major north-south rail lines, and ignoring the timely British aid and shipment of armor units. Passive defenses don't make for exciting books like sweeping offensives and clever armor maneuvers and the like. More later, but that is the start. Overall I respect his research for the most part, and have several of his books.
     
  7. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

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    British aid was timely but I still don't see the Germans taking Moscow even if that aid doesn't show up. However, you can argue effectively that the prospect of aid on the way and continuing as long as they needed it, allowed the Soviets to switch production to strictly military weapons and ammo without having to worry about food/clothing/trucks/locomotives and other products. The armor and planes didn't hurt either. Not to mention that it was American/British technology that got their refineries and fuel productions running more efficiently.

    I am not sold that lend lease itself turned the tables and allowed the Soviets to win, but it certainly sped up the advance and made the Soviet better fighting units and much more mobile. If the West was giving the German armies the same lend lease, you can bet the Soviets would not have lasted much longer. But I am convinced that the German army was flawed from the beginning and those flaws were the reason they lost. The fact that they lacked enough trucks to supply and reinforce their troops properly is just one of them.

    What Soviet minefields are you referencing?
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2022
  8. AARguy

    AARguy Well-Known Member

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    Lend Lease helped. But Russia's greatest ally... the Russian Winter... stepped in again to defeat an invader... just as it defeated Napolean.
    The Russians did a lot of smart things. One of which was have a railroad gauge (distance between rails) that was different than the rest of Europe. Supply trains coming from Germany had to be off loaded, then reloaded on to captured Russian trains., which were predictably scarce. As distances got further and further... the problem got worse and worse. Russian tactical philosophy is unique in many ways. For example, their Infantry walked right into their own "artillery prep" on an objective. They were willing to take 10%-15% casualties from their own "friendly fire" in order to be on the objective before the defenders could get up out of their foxholes and bunkers. They have also always decided to use massive numbers instead of quality equipment. They knew that Russian tanks could never win a one-on-one contest with a German tank. So they decided to have so many tanks that it would overwhelm their enemy. They kept this philosophy well into the Cold War. Americans decided not to challenge this philosophy with a similar one. America decided to develop attack helicopters from Cobra and later Apache. The 16 HELLFIRE precision missiles that a single Apache carries, could blunt any Company or even Battalion sized Armor attack by the Russians.
     
  9. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

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    Rasputitsa (The October muds), Russian winter and of course the spring floods all made moving difficult. Especially when the interior of the Russian territories were so primitive at the time. But the Russian tanks at the start of the war were superior to those of Germany. The T34/76 and the KV series both had better armor and better guns. T34's also had wider tracks that allowed them to operate better in less than perfect conditions which was what the Russian Steppes were all about. The issue with Russian tanks were that crews were poorly trained and they didn't have radios. American lend lease helped fix that issue, BTW. They used mostly flags coordinate. Most were also in poor condition because the Russians don't like to spend money on repair and maintenance. The Great Officer purge didn't help either, they lost a lot of good men who knew their craft and most divisions were led by Political Officers who could maneuver their way through the system, not real soldiers. But the T34 series could be mass produced a lot easier than the German armor who had a tendency to "over engineer" everything they made. That made production times slower and a wide variety of specialized parts had to be shipped to the front which bogged down supply or made arrival of parts much slower. German supplies were also mostly horse drawn. Yes, horses and wagons. It was the T34 encounters that led to the German "Panther" tanks because Germany knew their armor was not on par with the Soviets.

    The rail lines were an issue because of the different gauges and because of how simplistic the lines in Russia were. The Germans actually replaced the lines because very few locomotives and train cars were captured. Also, as the Soviet armies were retreating they were destroying everything which meant the Germans had to replace the lines with standard gauge. One thing Germany learned was that the Soviet locomotives were able to operate in the winter far better without freezing up and breaking down because they were so simplistic. German engineers removed precision parts and stripped down their own trains until the sub zero temperatures eased and this help get supplies up to the front faster.

    Another issue was using Soviet coal. Soviet coal was so poor that it had to be mixed in with German coal to make it usable. That meant Germany had to import coal into a region they were exporting coal from. Soviet locomotives were far more simplistic and could cover greater distances before needing refueling, which was water and coal.

    As far as doctrines and tactics go, the Soviet army wasn't very rudimentary at the start of the invasion but as the war went on, they learned a lot about how to counter the German tactics and were on par Strategically with Germany. They also understood something Germany never really grasped and that was logistics. Tactics win battles but logistics wins wars. The Soviets went on a total war footing within a few moths after they were invaded and Germany didn't until it was too late.
     
  10. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, that last paragraph should read:

    As far as doctrines and tactics go, the Soviet army was very rudimentary at the start of the invasion but as the war went on, they learned a lot about how to counter the German tactics and were on par Strategically with Germany. They also understood something Germany never really grasped and that was logistics. Tactics win battles but logistics wins wars. The Soviets went on a total war footing within a few moths after they were invaded and Germany didn't until it was too late.

    By and large, the Soviets were still using the "Deep Battle" plan. But the Officer Purges in 1937 - '39 had a great affect:

    The purge of the Soviet military liquidated the generation of officers who had given the Red Army the deep battle strategy, operations and tactics and who also had rebuilt the Soviet armed forces. Along with these personalities, their ideas were also dispensed with. Some 35,000 personnel, about 50 percent of the Officer Corps, three out of five Marshals; 13 out of 15 Army Group commanders; 57 out of 85 Corps Commanders; 110 out of 195 Division commanders; 220 out of 406 Brigade commanders were murdered, imprisoned or "discharged". Without the personnel and strategy, Stalin destroyed the cream of the personnel with operational and tactical competence in the Red Army. Other sources identify 60 out of 67 Corps Commanders, 221 out of 397 Brigade Commanders, 79 percent of regimental commanders, 88 percent of regimental chiefs of staff, and 87 percent of all battalion commanders.

     
  11. AARguy

    AARguy Well-Known Member

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    Good post. One little anecdote... We had a number of papers to produce at Leavenworth during C&GSC. I ended up writing one on British logistics during the Crimean War. Sounds really dull and boring, huh? Well... it was. But impressed on me the importance of logistics nonetheless.
     
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  12. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Re Napoleon, it should be remembered the he took Moscow, as did the Poles before him did, and burned it to the ground before being driven out. Their logistics resources were considerably different than Germany's, who railroads and much faster vehicles and longer range weapons. The better case for Soviets would be their defenses around Smolensk and the delays they caused there re Moscow's survival. In any case, a renewed German offensive would have finished off Moscow by the next summer if weren't for the timely arrival of British armor units and troops from the Far East already equipped for winter fighting, the primary factor being the Brits' armor units allowing Stalin to conduct winter offensives, and the failure of the German armor sweeps to reach the critical north-south rail lines.

    The route to Moscow was the traditional invasion route that ran through Smolensk for the Poles, French, and Germans; a study of maps will show why.

    Some think Moscow wasn't an important strategic objective, but looking at the rail networks tells a different story; it was a key strategic region as well as a political one. It was also the center of the battles lines stretching from Leningrad to Stalingrad.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2022
  13. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

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    Moscow was very important, especially as a supply and rail hub. I just think Germany was spread too thin by the time they even got to Moscow and even if they took it, they would never be able to hold the flanks. Diverting Guderian's forces South had to be done otherwise the Soviet Southwestern Front would be able to slice through the German defenses and cut off the attacking armies. Guderian inflicted 600K losses and destroyed that entire front. Had they continued to Moscow instead, they would have breached the city and engaged in urban warfare. Who knows how long that battle would have lasted. It could have easily have turned into another Stalingrad meat grinder with the Germans being enveloped and surrounded.

    At the time, Germany had defense forces in France, the low countries, Norway and in Africa. They grossly underestimated what the Soviets could put in the field and by the time they made it to the outskirts of Moscow, they had lost 65% of their armor and their 136 divisions had the effective combat power of about 83. If Germany was fighting on a single front and he could incorporate those much needed troops/trucks/armor/supplies, the front may very well have collapsed and Moscow taken and held.

    Even if Moscow was taken, I suspect unless Stalin himself was captured, they would have fought on drawing Germany in deeper and with the help of lend lease and allied support, the war would still be very difficult to win and effect a peaceful resolution or capitulation.
     
  14. Grau

    Grau Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Re:
    The Germans, of course, knew that attempting to fight on 2 fronts was suicidal so that's why Hitler sent Hess to Britain with a peace offer to Churchill. (1)

    The offer was to return all conquered territories in the West (France, the Netherlands etc) for a "well wishing neutrality" so that Germany could devote all its already limited resources to fighting Communism.
    Churchill refused to even meet with Hess because he was confident that British agents in America(2) could lure an anti War America into another disastrous European war so that Britain's brutal global empire could remain secure for British plundering.

    Even after the Pearl Harbor attack, 80% of Americans were against another war with Germany but FDR, Morgenthau and their war mongering cronies wanted Germany destroyed even if it ensured Communist expansionism which had already begun (Finland, Spain, Iran etc)

    A WW 2 was going to occur with or without Germany and Japan because German intelligence had discovered Stalin's plan to roll Westward on M - Day (for “Mobilization Day”) between late 1939 and summer of 1941. (3). One of the reasons for Germany's early military successes was that Stalin's forces were in offensive positions and made no defensive preparations.

    As you mentioned, if Germany had been fighting on a single front instead of 3 fronts, Europe's history would have been very different today.

    Thanks,




    (1) "What the World Rejected: Hitler’s Peace Offers 1933–1940"
    https://www.amazon.com/What-World-Rejected-Hitlers-1933-1940-ebook/dp/B00M5K8OEM

    EXCERPT " Written by Germany’s foremost diplomatic historian of the early twentieth century, this work maps out all the numerous times that Adolf Hitler made unconditional offers of peace to all the nations of Europe—and how the major anti-German belligerents, France and Britain, turned down these offers each and every time.

    The author lists all of Hitler’s offers in detail, complete with quotes, starting with his first offer of May 17, 1933, his second offer of December 18, 1933, his third offer of May 21, 1935, his fourth offer of March 31, 1936, his fifth offer of September 30, 1938, his sixth offer of December 6, 1938, his seventh offer of late 1939 to Poland to settle the Danzig Corridor issue peacefully, and finally, his offer of world peace on October 6, 1939, just over a month after Britain and France had declared war on Germany for invading Poland on September 1 (but not on the Soviet Union, which also invaded Poland on September 17).

    This edition benefits from four new sections which did not appear in the original publication. These are:

    - The full text of Hitler’s “Appeal for Peace and Sanity” speech, made before the Reichstag on July 19, 1940, following the fall of France. In that speech, Hitler once again offered unconditional peace to Britain.

    This speech was printed in English and dropped by the tens of thousands from German aircraft over Britain. Although nearly half the British cabinet wanted to take up his offer, Churchill’s warmongering put an end to this final offer of peace;"CONTINUED


    (2) "The conquest of the United States by Britain"
    http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/mahl.htm

    EXCERPT "Mahl evaluates British intelligence activities in the United States as "one of the most important and successful covert operations of history." (p. 186) What is most astounding, however, is not the British activity but the collaboration by the Roosevelt administration. For while Britain was simply pursuing her perceived national interest, Roosevelt's cooperation with the intelligence service of a foreign state could certainly be labeled as treasonous.”CONTINUED

    The principal tactic of British propaganda, Mahl points out, was to excite American fears of a direct German threat to the United States. That involved two basic themes:

    - that Germany was poised to take over Latin America and that American non-interventionists were pro-Nazi fifth columnists. (It should be noted here that there was virtually no mention of German persecution of Jews, which today has become the ultimate justification for the "good war.")

    The theme that non-interventionists were really Nazi agents had perhaps the greatest long-term impact. That lethal smear destroyed the careers of many non-interventionists, eliminating opposition not only to involvement in World War II but also to postwar American globalism in general.

    Further, numerous works have shown that American intervention was not even essential for England's salvation. As John Charmley and others have maintained, England could have saved herself by agreeing to a separate peace with Germany.CONTINUED


    (3) "Exposing Stalin’s Plan to Conquer Europe:…"
    https://www.counter-currents.com/201...onquer-europe/

    EXCERPT "In Icebreaker, Suvorov details the deployment of Soviet forces in June 1941, describing just how Stalin amassed vast numbers of troops and stores of weapons along the European frontier, not to defend the Soviet homeland but in preparation for a westward attack and decisive battles on enemy territory.

    Thus, when German forces struck, the bulk of Red ground and air forces were concentrated along the Soviet western borders facing contiguous European countries, especially the German Reich and Romania, in final readiness for an assault on Europe.

    In his second book on the origins of the war, “M Day” (for “Mobilization Day”), Suvorov details how, between late 1939 and the summer of 1941, Stalin methodically and systematically built up the best armed, most powerful military force in the world — actually the world’s first superpower — for his planned conquest of Europe. Suvorov explains how Stalin’s drastic conversion of the country’s economy for war actually made war inevitable.

    Stalin instead wanted the Soviet regime to take advantage of occasional “armistices” in the global struggle to consolidate Red military strength for the right moment when larger and better armed Soviet forces would strike into central and western Europe, adding new Soviet republics as this overwhelming force rolled across the continent."CONTINUED
     
  15. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

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    Grau,

    I don't think Suvorov is correct and I think his book was merely to make money and give a different take or an alternative look at what the Soviet Union was up to before the German's invaded. For instance, if Stalin was preparing an attack and massing troops for an offensive, why were his armored units and support battalions in such poor repair and in disarray? Even as late as July 1941, The Soviet army was in no position offensively or even defensively to match the Germans. Airfields were a mess, training was suspect, planes left to rust, no manufacturing facilities for spare parts, weapons and mobilization that would support his claims. Ammo dumps were peacemeal, some too far from the front others way too close. If Stalin really was going to put the Soviets on a war footing for a conflict, steps would have been taken right after the The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed.

    Stalin, in fact, seemed content to watch Germany hammer the British and to seel Germany oil and materials for the war. It was also said that Stalin was hoping for a better relationship, militarily, with Germany. Stalin hated Britian and everything they stood for. Even as Churchill sent warnings to him of an impending attack, he ignored them. He ignored his own intel services as well, for that matter.

    Suvorov is correct when he states that the Soviets were working on plans for an offensive, but he ignores the fact that nations like Poland and France beforwe Germany invaded, were also working on these plans with no defensive plans to fall back on. So what does that mean? Was Poland preparing to attack Germany? Not at all. France? No, they were pretty much hiding behind the fortified defenses of the Siegfried Line.

    I had more to bring to this topic, but I found a good link for you to pour over:

    https://networks.h-net.org/node/100...ntz-stumbling-colossus-red-army-eve-world-war

    Enjoy because it will give you a facts that support Suvorov and detract from his book. It's been a long time since I looked over Icebreaker and Stumbling Colossus. This discussion makes me want to start reading them again. :)
     
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  16. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    What if the truth, as is seemingly in most things: In the middle. I had heard Hitler recordings, both diplomatically(to the Finnish ambassador) as well as to his own Reichstag about the perceived Russian Threat. And it's acknowledged that superior Russian numbers allowed them to eventually win the day. So perhaps these forces were incapable of mounting an offensive, but their positioning may have alerted the German High Command. That, combined with ideology(and Hitler's distaste for the Finnish War) seems to have spurred Operation Barbarossa into motion.
     
  17. bigfella

    bigfella Well-Known Member

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    Suvorov has been discredited by proper historians and belongs firmly in the 'pseudo-history' category.

    As you point out, the Red Army was in absolutely no condition to mount an offensive in 1941 and there is a mountain of evidence to that end. Stalin was also busy building defensive lines which were incomplete & ineffective when war began.

    Had Germany become bogged down for a few years in France & chewed up its military strength there he might have tried something against a weakened Germany. However, with Germany at full strength after France fell and actually adding strength with new allies there was no way he was going to attack. Hitler was a gambler, Stalin was more calculating.
     

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