Mark Solonin - The cask and the hoops

Why do you claim Glantz has to come up with solid arguments when you yourself stated that did not read his book? How do you know he didn't?

Please list all the "Glantz crap" Solonin debunked and do so by sparing me the usual theatrics in your posts.

Indeed I hadn't read anything written by Glantz, but given the oppinions of Suvorov, Solonin and PaulC (!), I supposed he was some kind of apologet of the Red Army. BTW, is there a link to Glantz's book(s)?

Glantz doesn't have a theory to promote, he's promoted himself as the "details" man. He floods you with huge amounts of data, that each T34 had 5 screws missing, that BT tanks had 71 hours of motor life left, that each platoon had 13% of the radios needed, 70% of the boots, 24% of the ammo, etc ,etc.

His second "expertise" is to uncover so called "forgotten battles". Apparently, the Eastern front is full of large battles that went wrong on both sides and are hidden under the carpet. Huge soviet offensives like operation Mars that blasts away Zhukov's professionalism and competence.

Why I'm saying he's a fraud ? Because he writes in disparaging terms of the Red Army, portrays them as a bunch of imbeciles and being the pinnacle of incompetence ( as if all the incompetence of the world gathered there ). And you know from where he has those juicy details ? From the Ministry of Defense in Russia. He boasts about his trips in Russia and how he is shown previously classified material. And what for ? To prove the Russians are incompetent. And what is the Ministry of Defense saying ? " Very good, comrade Glantz. Come next year also, we might have some more archives for you."

To anyone with half a brain, this should sound suspicious. An american researcher is invited by the Ministry of Defense in Russia and is given a wealth of numbers and percentages. No official Russian historian has that amount of details. Their books seem stuck in the '50s, each copying from the previous. To them, the Red Army still had 1800 tanks at the beginning of Barbarossa. The new generation of Russian historians, almost all amateur, have used the cracks in the system to get juicy details too. Solonin, Melthiukov don't stand Glantz. And is easy to see why, their story is totally different an inline with Suvorov.

Btw, I wonder if somebody would go to the French Defense Ministry and ask access to the archives for a book where he intends to prove the French army was incompetent and lazy. He would be deported in 24h from the country.

A simple example why Glantz is a fraud, he's famous data about the reliability of the Red Army tanks. "29% need rebuild and 44% major overhaul" - that's 73% of the soviet tanks being inoperable on June 1st. But is it really so ?

Let's see what Solonin says :

Coming back to your post, regarding pre-June 22, I'm referring to the 3-4 months before when both the Red Army ( which started first ) and the Wehrmacht were deploying for their jump of positions in the bulges pinpointing towards the enemy.

This post has been edited by PaulC on September 15, 2012 07:59 pm

Please list all the "Glantz crap" Solonin debunked and do so by sparing me the usual theatrics in your posts.

By coincidence, already did that in the previous post regarding tank availability.

He;s not really apologetic, he's a few words short of calling the Red Army a rabble ( o gloata de neispraviti ). His books follow the party line, not deviating 1" from it.

Which is funny since the data and his conclusions are most of the time going head to head. I will post you 2 user reviews from the Amazon since they capture exactly what I mean.

This post has been edited by PaulC on September 15, 2012 08:15 pm

Interesting comments from Amazon.com. Thanks for posting.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on September 16, 2012 07:00 am

Yeah... so it's highly controversed and expensive! So I won't buy it any time soon...

Just because Glantz doesn't engage in speculation like Suvorov doesn't mean he's towing "the party line".

In regard to that 2nd review, we know why Hitler attacked Russia and we even know when he took the decision to do so. His decision had nothing to do with Soviet troops massing on the border or with a possible Soviet invasion in 1941. So the attempt to link Suvorov's theory to Hitler's publicly professed reasons for Barbarossa only shows the subconscious mental mechanisms of some of Suvorov's biggest fans.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on September 16, 2012 02:51 pm

Hitler's decision was taken because of the aggresive behaviour of USSR. I do NOT think that Hitler wanted to attack USSR in 1939 or prior to that... only after doing business directly with them he got the idea that they (aka Stalin, Molotov etc.) could be even more ruthless and aggresive than himself. It is, however, very suspicious that the very German generals which trained in the USSR in the 20's and early 30's, have not considered the Russian tanks worth a damn, nor the Russian production capabilities! I mean, Untermensch, but if you do see their achievements, why would you (Hitler and his henchmen) not try to surpass that?

It would be normal to read a book, paper, anything written by him and and then cast judgement. A least do the effort and google him.

I'm sure he'd give anything to find such a big fish like what Suvorov caught. But such opportunities come and go once in a lifetime and all he can do is to play the old theme and crush the readers with enormous amount of figures and percentages. With no beginning and no end.

He can't engage in speculation. At best he can memorize something and repeat it to you. Suvorov is a thrill to read because you notice from the very beginning the guy is creative and has an incredible critical thinking. He's training in the GRU also becomes apparent for attention to detail. Glantz doesn't posses that. Instead of critical thinking all he can do is to criticize everything.

Who is we ?

Why and when ?

You mean the reasons proven by the soviet deployment ?

I dare you to find a single lie in the reasons expressed by Ribbentrop.

We already discussed this once, but I will repeat the answer.
First of all, the actual quote is:

(Stumbling Colussus, page 117-118)
So it's not "rebuild", it's "capital repair" and it's not "major overhaul", it's "lesser maintenance" and it's not the entire Soviet tank park, it's just the older models. If you are quoting, better do it from the actual source, not your interpretation of Solonin. t's not ok to attribute incorrect quotes to an author just to make your point.

Furthermore, you won't find in Stumbling Colossus the claim that there were only 3800 combat ready tanks in the Red Army on 22 June 1941. But if you do, please refer to the specific page.

Second, "lesser maintenance" could very well include the tanks that have minor problems that could be resolved in the divisional workshops and not fall into categories 3-5 (overhauling). Btw, isn't it odd for you that there is no category for "under repairs at division level"? Under this circumstances one could argue that "quite operable" includes "lesser maintenance".

So that leaves 29% of the older models. Given that 1,475 were T-34s and KVs, this means that 12,782-1,475=11,307 were older models. One could argue that the B-7Ms were also new models and thus further decrease the total of older models, but for simplicity, let's leave it like this. 29% out of 11,307 is 3,279, which means that a total of 9,502 tanks were operable or quite operable. Not that far from 10,540 and certainly not 3,800.

But, other than this one example of "Glantz crap", which is the only case where Solonin mentions his name, can you provide more? You yourself claimed that

"A lot" means more than one.

You also claim that Glantz has portrayed the Red Army :

I suggest you read other books written by David Glantz (Colossus Reborn, When Titans Clashed, Red Storm over Blakans) to see that this is not the case.

This simply makes no sense.
So what if a country opened its archives? Who made it a rule that unless one writes "nicely" about the "helphul country" that makes one a "fraud"?
What if Germany opened their archives to a historian? Would you call a "fraud" any such historian who did not write "nicely" about Hitler's Germany? The truth has nothing to do with "being nice".
We mentioned above how Romania was blighted by "rubbish historians" who kissed the behind of whoever was nice to them.
Radu

This post has been edited by Radub on September 16, 2012 07:52 pm

@MM & PaulC

Hitler made his mind up to attack Russia after conquering France, in 1940.

His decision was geostrategic, not determined by Soviet deployment of forces. The extent of which German intelligence had no clue about anyway.

The very existance of numerous Soviet divisions was a big problem for Germany. The British blockade and the increasingly clear prospects of US involvement in the war on Britain's side made Germany's economic situation even more critical. The very existance of Russia's natural resources was a big attraction. For these reasons, aggressive or not Russia was going to be attacked. Only with the Red Army out of the picture and Russia's natural resources under its control would Germany be free and able to handle the war with UK&US and go for world power.

That is why Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. The official reasons presented to the public are have to be taken with a grain of salt because they were subordinate to a propaganda purpose. Germany had to claim the moral highground and to engage the whole of Europe in a crusade against Bolshevism. All public messages were subordinated to those "PR" goals.

p.s. That doesn't mean they don't have a grain of truth. But they're not telling the whole story. They're just an excuse, not the core reasons.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on September 16, 2012 08:05 pm