Red Army myths

I just came across an interesting article

http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-Buster...ters2.html#an_3

The article talk about tanks in general, and T-34 in special. I assume the author researched well the numbers involved.
And the image resulted, at least for me, is that T-34 was a very good tank regarding fiability, mobility and even firepower, but lacked much on ergonomy, coordination and firecontrol, which make it quite vulnerable.

The Soviet losses was incredible huge, and just the Germans mistakes or weaknesess (which was many as well, at strategic level especially) and the Allies involvement made the USSR to survive the Axis assault.

The myth promoted usually by Soviet or Russian historyography, of an invincible Red Army able to win the war alone, full of heroic Soviet soldiers and equipped with excellent weaponry, rolling over inept adversaries, seem to be a simple myth.

Soviet just throw lots of people as "cannon fodder", hoping to stop the Axis advance, and throw everything they had or they received from Americans (especially) and UK in a hope that their bigger numbers will wear down the Germans (and Axis) smaller armies.

Soviet army and its sodiers didnt seem to be any extraordinary one as quality compared with any other somewhat important armies (even compared with our soldiers, as combat qualities), as their losses was enormous (both as deaths and prisoners).

They was better equipped (not just as number of weapons but as quality of them too) and more experienced after the half part of the war, but still their losses was incredible huge. This show both a disregard of Soviet commanders for the life of simple soldiers, which was simply thrown in the "grind meat" and was saw as expendable materials, and show as well somehow a lack of combat qualities, of both weaponry and men, probably at command level especially, even if the simple soldier or those from lower ranks endured with stoicism the hard conditions and do their best.

It was the quantity (as they have a bigger population and industrial base, mostly made during 20-30's), the Allies help and the mistakes or weaknesses of Germans (or Axis) at strategic level that make the Red Army to win in East.

In a one on one battle it looks like USSR would lost in front of Germany/Axis, and in a what if scenario and if you move the Red Army in France let say, i think they would lose the same as French army lost the war then, in same amount of time, because they wouldnt have a space behind to retreat, nor have time to receive help.

This post has been edited by udar on April 21, 2012 03:24 pm

I didn't read the whole article, just between lines. The author seems to compare losses ratio between German and Soviet tanks like most of the battles were tank duels, when in fact tank encounters were pretty rare in the big picture. Most of the tank losses were due enemy infantry, artillery, aircraft, breakdowns etc. One thing is clear, the Germans used T-34 as a source of inspiration for building their more advanced tanks, Panther and Tiger II, with sloped armor and wide tracks. As for heavy tanks in 1941, even with their obvious shortcomings, the KV tanks were nothing the Germans could cope with in regards of armor. While overall the Soviets lost more tanks than Germans in 1941, probably in the tank versus tank engagements the ratio was reversed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KV-1#Krasnogvardeysk

That could be said the same about Germany in the end of the war. At least the Soviet expectations of wearing down the Germans proved realistic, while German actions like the Ardennes offensive of winter 1944/45 was a complete waste of resources as the goal was an illusion.

I disagree with this, and in my opinion, Germany's only hope to win in the East was the collapse of the Soviet leadership, Stalin in particular, which didn't happen, on the contrary... Logistically, Germany was doomed from the start and after the stall before Moscow, the prospect of a prolonged war put Germany in an unfavorable position. Germany was never prepared for an attrition war.

As for the comparison with France, at least the Soviets mounted disorganized counteroffensives right from the start, which French didn't, reacting slower. Had the French launched attacks swiftly in critical spots, such as at Sedan, the Germans would have found themselves in a much difficult situation.

Entirely subscribe to dragos remarks! Without criticize too much the manner of writing of the site's author, and away from the idea to ​​praise the T-34 tank, I have to say that I found many inaccuracies or assumptions that contradict many good documented books which I have read! The content of component articles is not necessarily wrong, but some conclusions surely are! To give just one example, in several well documented books which I read, concerning German Pz.III and Pz.IV tanks, including many quotations from the battle reports of some German tank fighting formations, Pz.III tank performance in combat, even fitted with the longer 50mm L/60 gun, is very poor when facing the soviet T-34s! And the books I read are not Soviet or Allied propaganda writings, but well-documented books written by authors like Walther J. Spielberger, Hillary L. Doyle, Thomas Jentz, Horst Scheibert a.o.
Even in the footnotes of the posted table highlighting the alleged capacity of the german 50mm long tank gun to destroy T-34 tanks is specified that those data should be taken with great reserve because it seems that the soviet mistaken the long 50mm tank gun with the long 75mm tank gun!

This post has been edited by ANDREAS on April 21, 2012 10:54 pm

[QUOTE=dragos,April 21, 2012 09:04 pm] [QUOTE]


The author compare losses in general, but yes, i think he seem to consider them more in that line, tank vs tank. However, the overall losses from all causes (tank vs tank, artilery, infantry, aviation) doesnt change the numbers and tank vs tank wasnt quite rare either.

And i am very agree that T-34 was an excellent tank as armour, mobility, fiability, even firepower and was easy to be made/simple. What the author say, and i tend to agree with him, is that the tank ergonomy and concept of use was flawed. It had a poor visibility from the inside, and have little to none means of comunication and coordination with other tanks.
This mean they get often found themselves in bad tactical positions which better equipped German tanks was usually able to avoid

What you post there about that KV-1 tanks was an exception, thats why is so well known. I can easily find similar stories about Tiger tanks in next years


[/QUOTE]
That could be said the same about Germany in the end of the war. At least the Soviet expectations of wearing down the Germans proved realistic, while German actions like the Ardennes offensive of winter 1944/45 was a complete waste of resources as the goal was an illusion.[QUOTE]


Well, i didnt said that Germans didnt make mistakes or have their own weaknesses. Soviet expectation was indeed more realistic, because they have the people and the space, and the Allies, but this show precisely what i said. Soviet relied more in grind down the enemy in a battle of attrition which they hoped to win thru their superior numbers, and not quite by the quality of their command or by some extraordinary overall fighting abilities.
They (as Nazis too later) doesnt care about the lives of ordinary people, they saw them as expendables and send them to death without care, puting NKVD formations behind to shoot them when they want to retreat (as Germans used too SS formation with the same role at some point).



[/QUOTE]I disagree with this, and in my opinion, Germany's only hope to win in the East was the collapse of the Soviet leadership, Stalin in particular, which didn't happen, on the contrary... Logistically, Germany was doomed from the start and after the stall before Moscow, the prospect of a prolonged war put Germany in an unfavorable position. Germany was never prepared for an attrition war.

As for the comparison with France, at least the Soviets mounted disorganized counteroffensives right from the start, which French didn't, reacting slower. Had the French launched attacks swiftly in critical spots, such as at Sedan, the Germans would have found themselves in a much difficult situation.[QUOTE]



Well, as the numbers there show, if the Germans (and Axis) would have just a single front to fight, against USSR, they would more probably win in 9 cases of 10.
Germans, even building less armoured vechicles then Soviets was very close to be able to destroy everything that Soviets could build and throw against them.
Now consider that Allied aviation didnt bomb the German factories and Germans dont have any troops in west (from Norway to France), nor in Balkans or North Africa (due to Italians inabilities).
All those divisions (not sure what number, but i assume they was maybe around 40 or so) under let say Rommel comand will show up on Eastern front.
And German industry work full capacity, unhintered by Allied bombing campaign.

About the comparition with France, well, i doubt the Soviets would do much better in a space as France size, vs a full German assault like in 1941

As far as i understand the author said that German tanks as P-III or P-IV managed to destroy some T-34 taking profit by the weakness of those, namely the poor visibility and poor coordination betwen tanks, so they was able to come at kill distance to them, or to outflank them.

A good example is the battle of Kursk

There the Soviets known well before the operation the Germans plan, their troops involved, the disposition of forces etc. and was able to bring more troops, enjoying superiority (even a big one in some categories) in every aspect, infantry, tanks, artilery, aviation, plus laying mine fields and doing fortificatioan lines and trenches.

Even so and even if they win at the end they lost much more numbers in each of those categories and Germans was attracted too by Allies landing in Sicily and Italy and diverted troops there.

That battle was the biggest tank battle in history, up to today, and one of the biggest of WW 2. And you can see there better the ratio betwen losses, even if Soviets had theoretically all the trump cards. They win again because they had much more troops in reserve, and again the involvement of Allies later.

Many of them fight heroically, they did had good tanks and more but at the end it was the number who make them win, not some extraordinary fighting qualities or some superior qualitatively weaponry.

But yes, Germans made many mistakes too and had their weaknesses as well, they surely wasnt at all invincible

i m a little confused
T 34 destoyed by 20 mm and 37 mm guns
as far as i know when romanians tested the R2 tank gun against a T 34 it was useless even in point blank range

The main disatvantage of T 34 was its 4 member crew,which lead to a double job for the commander,imposibility to concentrate on each of his duties,which coupled with poor visibility led to a slow reaction to the enemy.

This post has been edited by guina on April 22, 2012 12:11 pm

I was referring to 1941, when German armor was clearly inferior to Soviet. There are more examples of single Red Army tanks holding up against more numerous German tanks, but I have found no story of a single German Panzer III or IV in 1941 being able to do the same when facing multiple T-34 or KV tanks. I guess they tried to avoid engaging those unless they had support artillery or Stukas.

Of course, from 1943 on the German came up with their own heavies, but even then the Soviets could came up with something that could neutralize them, such as ISU-152 or KV-85. The situation wasn't so imbalanced as it was in 1941 regarding the efficiency of tanks.

The Germans were better at the tactical level than anyone else during the war so the combat performance at their peak power isn't really surprising.

1943 was the only year in which the soviets were inferior tank wise ( mainly in weaponry , not mobility ). Panther's long 75 and the Tigers 88 coupled with better optics allowed them to engage the the Russian tanks at significant distances over the mostly flat Orel steppe.

Quantity has a quality of its own.

In Raseinai, a single KV2 held off the 6th Panzer Division for 1 day.One tank vs. 245. The fight ended when the KV2 ran out of ammo.

How much ammunition can a KV2 carry?
245 tanks against one single tank? I think this may be misunderstanding an exaggeration.
Radu

How much ammunition can a KV2 carry?
245 tanks against one single tank? I think this may be misunderstanding an exaggeration.
Radu

You can find the example in Steven Zaloga's book about KV heavy tanks, page 10. I can't access imageshack to upload a screenshot from work. The tank positioned itself at a major crossroad and held the 6th panzer.

I found a description of the engagement on another site :

link

If anything, it doesn't say as much about how resilient the KV tank was, but how immobile and poorly equipped the German were. It boggles the mind how road dependent they were even with their tank divisions.

This post has been edited by PaulC on April 23, 2012 11:00 am

There is no mention anywhere of a "duel between one KV-2 tank and 245 tanks".

The text mentions that one KV-2 held back a "german advance". The tank destroyed the trucks of a supply column, a number of attacking artillery pieces and resisted an attack by engineers. At some point 50 tanks are mentioned - and that is accompanied by an exclamation mark in the text, indicating a certain amount of disbelief on the part of the author.

There is no mention anywhere of a single tank fighting 245 other tanks, which sounds to me like "Neo fighting numerous Agent Smiths" in Matrix Revolutions.

I presume that you included this as an example of how silly Red Army myths got and you do not actually believe that one single KV-2 actually fought 245 tanks.

Radu

The same incident here: http://english.battlefield.ru/kv-2.html

Also: "The most of KV-2 tanks were lost because of breakdowns. For example, 41st Tank Division lost 22 KV-2 tanks of 33 tanks total. The only 5 tanks were destroyed by the enemy, other 17 tanks were abandoned because of breakdowns or run out of fuel."

Of course not. I indicated the no of tanks in 6th Panzer division. Of course, nobody is silly enough to believe you had 245 tanks lined up on one side and the KV2 on the other side. The KV destroyed probably a few transport, a few tanks that dare to attack it and thus stopped the advance of Army Group North spearhead.

Say what you want, I've yet to hear a comparable example on the western front.

Of course the KV tanks broke down or remained out of fuel in the disastrous confusion of the early days. Many tank divisions did not manage to fire a shot in anger before abandoning their tanks due to fuel, air attacks or mechanical issues which couldn't be fix in a total chaos scenario. But that's beside the point and there is another thread for that discussion.