Suvorov books, ww-2

The Soviet mechanized forces in Bessarabia are well presented in the article I wrote in the 3rd issue of Modelist magazine. There was no 24th Mechanized Corps, just the 2nd and 18th Mechanized Corps. The 2nd Mechanzied Corps was relatively strong with 517 tanks, including 10 KV-1 and 50 T-34. The rest were BT-5 and 7. The 18th Mechanized Corps was, however, 282 tanks strong, all of which were the obsolete T-26 type. How many of these were actually serviceable is still an unanswered question.

Thus the total strength is around 800 tanks, far away from the 3,341+ claimed by Rezun.

The possibility of an atack against Romania after June 1940, when we evacuated Bassarabia an Northern Bukovina, was indicated by Constantin Kiritescu in his book about Romania in ww2, when he said that the reason for occupation of Northern Bukovina was the fact that it was an excellent base for a future atack against Romania, because the direction of the hills and valleys in Moldova was North - South, and any defence can be outflanked by an attack from Northern Bukovina.

Northern Bukovina was occupied because Hitler protested and said he would not accept the occupation of the entire Bukovina, as Stalin wished. There was no master plan. It was just a land-grabbing campaign of the USSR.

+ 16th mecanised soviet corps ( 15th tank division Stanislav, 39th tank division Cernauti, 240 motorised division Kamenetz Podolski )
73% strenght 612 tanks

Agree, but that's not the point.
If we look at the map, from Bukovina to south, you can see that the valleys are going from north to south, and the hills were oriented the same. The defence positions must be on top of the hills, oriented east. Bukovina occupied (northern or all), the defence positions were outflanked from north.
Bukovina was never part of Russia, he was claimed in reparation for the "Romanian occupation of Bassarabia". And one of the strategic reason was that it could be a base from an attack against Romania, via Moldavia.

Another source of good information which I assume correct -including a map (very interesting one) could be found at http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/map..._June_22_41.jpg
And the site is in english, for those interested!
According to the above mentioned map (and other informations on the site) which describes the positioning of large units of the Soviet Army first, as well as those of Germany and its allies on the other hand, there were two mechanised corps - 2nd Mechanised Corps commanded by Lt.-Gen. J.V. Novoselsky (527 tanks in which 50 T-34 and 10 KV-1) and 18th Mechanised Corps commanded by Gen.-Major P.V. Volokh (282 tanks with no T-34 and KV-1 at all) stationed in Bessarabia. These big soviet armored units were overwhelmingly strong compared to the german-romanian forces and only the confusion and disruption resulting from the german success in the western border areas of Soviet Union (and of course the powerful attacks of the german Luftwaffe!) has impeded their probably successful defence operations and even rejection over border of the german-romanian troops. Yes, the german-romanian troops had more infantry divisions in the area, but the soviets had the advantage of armor and artillery! The withdrawal of some armored units (of these Mechanised Corps) in July 1941 lessen the burden of the attacking German-Romanian forces, and led to the success that we know...

Certainly looks pretty Andreas
And look The 16th and 24th mechanized corps are exactly were I said the were...

Yet none of those was in Bessarabia or subordinated to the 9th Army.

No, that's exactly the point. The fact that Bukovina was a good base for attack against the forces in Moldavia, is not what I objected to. I objected to the claim that this was the driver for its occupation by the Soviets.

Consider that the Soviets were actually preparing for an offensive against Romania from Bukovina. Why weren't there more mechanized forces concentrated there on 22 June 1941?

Actually the vast majority were retreated in order to be used against the German spearhead in the battle for Uman.

Success? Or rather "succesuri": the battle was fought against an enemy who was anyway withdrawing; it was a rear-guard battle! The hypothesis of war (for the Romanian forces, from the OKW point of view) were two: "Nachstoss" (accelerated following of enemy forces retreating, trying to inflict as many losses as possible) and "Munchen", which provided the possibility of resistence from the Soviet forces, also retreating! Of course, the latter was actually applied: the Red Army didn't release any land without a fight, although the retreat was clear for everybody! Why else would have we (Romanian forces - and Germans attacking from Romania) waited two weeks after june 22-nd?

This post has been edited by MMM on February 16, 2010 01:57 pm

That would mean exposing the direction of the attack from the start. We would have deploied more divisions there and they would lose the surprise element.

They're advantage in artilery is in infantry mortars and antitank guns. In terms of fields cannons and howitzers the numbers are comparable.

Waited for front line to be shorter, after the advance of Army Group Center. If Army Group South (southern part of it) attacked earlier, would prononce an exposed left flank.

According to the map mentioned above, in 22 june 1941 in Northern Bukovina, stayed in position two soviet infantry/mountain divisions and one tank division - with 209 light tanks T-26 (two thirds of them being operable in july 1941), with another mountain division capable of intervention when needed. On our side of the border stayed three mountain brigades, one cavalry brigade and one infantry division. It's obvious that the soviet forces in the area (Northern Bukovina) were strong enough to initiate when necessary an offensive action towards Romania... even in the absence of other mechanised units.