Was the Soviet Union beatable?

Well, perhaps they weren't familiarized with the concept of strategic bombing! IIRC, the germans weren't either - they didn't even have heavy bombers!

Suggesting that the Soviets did not make use of logistical or strategical strikes is misleading. For example, they tried to destroy the bridge over Danube at Cernavoda on 10 August 1941 and managed to damage it. Of course, they did not employ strategic bombings at the scale the Western Allies did, because the dynamic nature of the Eastern Front and the struggle for survival did not allow the Soviets to spend their resources on strategic bombers. Neither did the Germans excelled at strategic bombings, as MMM pointed out, look how they wasted their bombers during the Battle of Britain and the "Blitz".

Do you mean there was only one bridge over Dnieper ?

Some of the Red Army generals that escaped the purge were not as incompetent as you might imply, at least not all of them. Zhukov is an example, during the battle of Khalkhin Gol, showing excellent combined arms and mass armor tactics even before WW2 officially started.

Budenny commanded in the South. Voroshilov in the North. Kirponos ion the center! All ace generals who received their credentials in military studies from the institute of Marxism Lenininsm!

Only Budionnii was outright stoopid; IIRC, Kirponos was KIA and Vorosilov recovered in the later stages of war.

The Germans had a heavy bomber in WW2, the He177.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_177

The Germans were in fact very familiar with the concept of long range strategic bombing. They used it extensively in WW1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotha_bombers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin-Staaken_R.VI

"Strategic bombing" and "long range strategic bombing" are two completely different things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bom...ng_World_War_II
This is a very compelx issue and there are thick books dedicated to it.
Germany used "strategic bombing" but such attacks were launched from relatively close range when compared to, for example, USAF and RAF. In fact, they did not need the range because the frontline was very narrow. If Germans were bombing Stalingrad, they had airfields close by so they did not need long range bombers. On the other hand, if the Allies wanted to bomb Germany, they did not have any airfields close by, so they had to use long-range bombers. In actual fact, a large bomber such as the B-17 could carry a 2000Kg bombload on a long range mission but the rest of the aircraft weight was taken by the extra fuel required to travel such a very long distance and the extra machine guns (and the ancillary ammunition and crews) to defend itself against attacks. In comparison, a Heinkel 111 could carry the same 2000Kg bombload but was much smaller than the B17 since it did not need to carry that much fuel on board. So, the "heavy bomber" that the Germans (apparently) lacked, actually did not refer to the "bomb weight", but rather to the "fuel weight".
Radu

This post has been edited by Radub on July 11, 2009 10:34 am

Again, right on target! Following: observations/critics:
1. Indeed, I should have been more specific: they lacked the concept of long-renge strategic bombing, because (partly true*) they didn't need it.
2. He-177 was available only from 1942, according to wikipedia - so, the eternal German story of too little, too late (as if when confronting SU+US, this would have mattered).
3. WW2 was different from WW1, even for Goring... so I guess they were so eager to adopt new tactics/strategies/doctrines/weapons that they didn't use what little they could. (said he, about 70 years later...)
* - in Mein Kampf and in Barbarossa planning, Hitler rambled on about pushing the russians across the Urals and controlling them with heavy long-range bombers - which he didn't have!

Budenny got his military studies in the Cavalry School long before the bolsheviks came to power.

Maybe they thought (correctly, it turns out) that strategic missles and rocketry, not to mention jet propulsion, would obviate bombers, of whatever weight!

If the Germans had just a liitle more time to develope the ICBM's they invented, (and possibly nuclear weapons), we'd all be speaking German right now. (at least those of us left alive).

Budenny got his military studies in the Cavalry School long before the bolsheviks came to power.
__________________________________________________________________

That should suffice for command of what 3 million men in the Ukraine? The guy was an idiot and comparable of the lot that Stalin had commanding in 1941!

Do you mean to compare Jukov, Vassilievski, Konev & others with Budenii? That's really sharp of you! Now try comparing them w/ Ceausescu, as well - he was a general, at a certain moment in the 60's!

This post has been edited by MMM on July 14, 2009 10:23 am

Exactly the point I was making. You lost me MMM: the Socviet Union was BEATABLE because the great idiot STALIN put people like Budenny and Voroshilov in command in 1940-41 instead of more capable people. Loyalty over competency! That is the way of Communism! So 7-8 million Red Army soldiers were killed, captured or missing because of the idiots commanding them! This made it easier for them to be beat!

I would add, that Germany could succeed much better if they wouldn't act like they did on occuped territories. About 2 million Russian men joined anti-bolschevik forces only officially.

My historical sympathies lie on the side of White movement (anti-communist) of the Civil war in Russia 1917-1922. A lot of these people joined axis and local anti-bolschevik forces during WW2 - I don't blame them since I understand that for most of them Stalin and his government were the same envadors as Hitler was, since many of them grew up in other Russia, not soviet.

BR, Dmitry

This post has been edited by Dmitry on August 26, 2009 11:57 am

Back to life, then...
Germany could NOT have done things differently, because it seems that the Nazi Doctrine (see Mein Kampf for references: I tried to read it but eventually gave up because either translation was faulty or the style was...) stated the "Drang nach Osten" was at hand - so I guess a depopulation of the territories was necessary, as well as an "excuse" for unleashing the savage teutonic instincts ("furor germanicus") on the "untermensch".

Of course Germany could have done differently, and if the Germans had succeeded in assasinating Hitler they would have, could have, should have. Hitler was an insane, and in the end, incompetent leader.

Split from topic "U.S. Missle Shield in Eastern Europe, Good idea?"

Well I always wondered about 1913....
I was talking about the "Don" since it's still fresh on our minds.
I just cannot imagine,how could "we " defeat the russians.
Just look at the map.....
And the winter.
Not to mention that "we" entered russia just as Napoleon army did 100 something years earlier.
By foot I mean.

This post has been edited by dragos on February 10, 2010 03:20 pm