Blitzkrieg tactics

Interesting response Victor, thanks. I didn't realize that the doctrine had been adopted officially.

I think the question of why this didn't have more impact on the way the Red Army actually fought is an interesting one. Five years is enough time to work out the issues with the new doctrine in exercises, and train the junior leaders and soldiers... but not if your main worry is being shot by the NKVD. I place most of the blame on the purges, but there may have been other reasons too.

I recently finished Catherine Merridale's Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army 1939-1945. In discussing the initial shock of the German invasion, she talked about popular perceptions of the Soviet's defense situation. There had been lots of films in the 30s that dealt with war and military themes. They always featured the socialist motherland being invaded by the capitalists, then fleets of SB-2s, I-16s and tanks appeared and just seemed to push the invader back effortlessly. There doesn't seem to have been the kind of critical thought put in to what military problems the Red Army would face, and how they would deal with them.

Negates? Maybe, but one could argue that "penetration" had different purposes in the two armies.

As you note, the German penetration was designed to create conditions for a pincer movement. It was achieved on a narrow front, and the actual exploitation was done by fully motorized units.

The Soviet penetration was to inflict casualties and gain territory too, but achieved it differently. They attacked on a much wider front, and did not care so much about the pincer. Who would be cut off by it anyway? Any units which were within artillery range and had not withdrawn had been destroyed by the initial assault. I'm thinking especially of the 1944 Summer Offensive here, where huge sections of the German line simply disintegrated, but there are plenty of other good examples of it. After that broad-front breakthrough, the armor and infantry would exploit (at infantry speeds) until they exhausted their supplies or the German mobile forces intervened.