Suvorov books, ww-2

Did STALIN purged 93,000 command cadre ?

see link : http://rkka.ru/handbook/personal/repress/main.htm about the number of purged officers

i would post the number of major generals leading division formed or forming in june -july 1941 ( before the reduction of the corps HQ ) later.

This post has been edited by osutacincizecisidoi on April 11, 2010 01:13 pm

Just out of curiosity: how many were 25 year old reservists with 2 years of military service were called up and how many fresh 19/21 years olds had just been conscripted before the war began?

I think it is common sense that a bunch of reservists called up for duty and shipped to the front in a matter of weeks (as the Soviets desperately did in the summer of 1941) will perform on average worse than regulars would. The complexity of a military force in the 20th century is immense. You cannot just make people that had some military service at some point in their lives click and act with the same cohesion and efficiency as soldiers that have been training together for at least some months. Also the physical fitness of a civilian would also be lower on average and the knowledge of the more modern equipment/tactics would be lacking. All of this gets worse when the reservists and conscripts called up have on average lower education and are used not to display too much initiative (if they know what's good for them).

without any reference at hand i would say 1.2 million 25 y.o reservist versus 3.6 million 19 to 21 y.o. conscripts.
both issued with the same type of rifle used in the civil war.
Not sure about what modern equipment/tactics you are referring.

Also during Stalin reign " fat and idle " does not come

This post has been edited by osutacincizecisidoi on April 11, 2010 01:24 pm

114,118General-maior Glovatskaya NM ,127 General maior Korneev, TG ,129 Gorodnyanskiy general-maior ,132AM S.S. Biryuzov general-maior,,134 kombrig VK Bazarov ,151 General maior Neretin VI , 160 General-maior Skugarev IM ,162,187 ,194 ,196 General-maior Kulikov KE ,198 General-maior V. Kryukov ,212 General-maior Baranov SV ,214General maior Rozanov, AI ,217,220 General maior Khoruzhenko GN ,226,227,
230 ,232 ,234 ,238 ,239 ,242 Коваленко Кирилл Алексеевич major general ,243 Поленов Виталий Сергеевич maj general,244,245 Корчиц Владислав Викентьевич KOMBRIG ,246 Мельников Иван Иванович major general ,247 ,248Сверчевский Карл Карлович major general ,250 Горбачев Иван Сергеевич major general ,251 Соловьев Филипп Яковлевич major general ,252,253,254 Похазников Петр Николаевич major general ,256 Иванов Степан Александрович major general ,257 Урбанович Виктор Казимирович ,


i can translate the rest of the names for those intrested .
nata could be fould online : http://samsv.narod.ru

This post has been edited by osutacincizecisidoi on April 11, 2010 03:07 pm

258,259 Шилов Федор Николаевич maj. gene ,260 ,261 ,262 Клешнин М. Н maj. general,264 ,266,268 Еншин Михаил Александрович maj.general,269, 270,271 Буренин Иван Николаевич kombrig ,272 ,279 ,280 Данилов Сергей Евлампиевич maj. general ,281 ,282,284 ,285 Кузьмин Иван Кузьмич kombrig ,286,
287,288,289 ,292 ,293,297 ,299 ,300 ,302 ,303 ,305 ,307 ,309 ,310 ,311 ,312 ,313 Павлович Антон Александрович maj general ,314 Шеменков Афанасий Дмитриевич maj. general ,316 Панфилов Иван Васильевич ( pamfilov ivan vasilievich) ,322 ,413 Терешков Алексей Дмитриевич maj general ,415 .

kombrig is 1 star general
maj general 2 star
the rest had the rank polkovnik ( colonel )

that's not my point , this is:

So the fact that these "modern" aircraft were weapons effective only for defense against high-altitude recon aircraft should be discarded?

Did STALIN purged 93,000 command cadre ?

see link : http://rkka.ru/handbook/personal/repress/main.htm about the number of purged officers

i would post the number of major generals leading division formed or forming in june -july 1941 ( before the reduction of the corps HQ ) later.

Between 1937 and 1941 an estimate of 54,714 officers were purged. The link you provided contains around 3,250 people. Probably these were the ones who were shot. Apart from these, many others were purged.

Anyway, I did not say anywhere that Stalin had purged 93,000 officers and neither did the report I quoted. The Red Army was simply short of this number of command cadre. The same report by Schadenko mentions that during 1928-1938, around 67,670 officers had left the Army for different reasons (willingly or unwillingly) and the output of the schools barely covered this. Since the Red Army and its reserves were expanding, so was the need for command personnel, thus the shortage.

Without any reference it would be interesting to see how you came up with the figures.

We are talking about 20th century warfare, not the Crusades. Wars were no longer fought by handing infantry weapons to a large group of men and herding them towards the enemy (to simplify the matter in the same manner you did). There are a lot of specialist support units and weapons that require a degree of technical knowledge. When the weapon or system changes, it takes time for the men to be re-qualified, especially since most are semi-illiterate. The Red Army was in the full process of rearming. The Mosin Nagant wasn't being replaced (although it was being modified), but other weapons were.

Regarding tactics, Timoshenko had begun in 1940 a series of reforms which logically would affect also the tactics used by the Red Army and which would differ in some respects to what a part of the reservists knew or remembered from their service days.

But one only needs to look at the performance of the hastily raised divisions to see their potential.

I realize that i'm playing the devil advocate here, but i'm interested in hearing arguments against Suvorov theories , other than my own.

that's not my point , this is:

So the fact that these "modern" aircraft were weapons effective only for defense against high-altitude recon aircraft should be discarded?

Pokryshkin did not seem to think so, it simply had to be flown differently than the i-16 and the i-153.

I would like to see Schadenko's reference for that figure.

Ok. So Schadenko quotes the the figures for the years of the purges, together with the previous 8 years , and comes up with a " terrible " number ...
This not only discredits Schadenko but also Glantz who quotes him.
The red army had around 120.000 officers before the war, 2400 would leave the army each year simply because of old age, in ten years it adds to a significant number but since that figure is not enough, lets add the purged officers also ....

We must also recall that in 1940, Stalin recalled a high number purged officers in the army ( ie ROKOSSOVSKI ) ,i can look up the exact figure if you wish , it 's around 12.000.

The rapid expansion of the army is bound to create experienced officer shortages, i'm not going to argue against that.

This post has been edited by osutacincizecisidoi on April 14, 2010 09:10 am

Without any reference it would be interesting to see how you came up with the figures.

We are talking about 20th century warfare, not the Crusades. Wars were no longer fought by handing infantry weapons to a large group of men and herding them towards the enemy (to simplify the matter in the same manner you did). There are a lot of specialist support units and weapons that require a degree of technical knowledge. When the weapon or system changes, it takes time for the men to be re-qualified, especially since most are semi-illiterate. The Red Army was in the full process of rearming. The Mosin Nagant wasn't being replaced (although it was being modified), but other weapons were.

Regarding tactics, Timoshenko had begun in 1940 a series of reforms which logically would affect also the tactics used by the Red Army and which would differ in some respects to what a part of the reservists knew or remembered from their service days.

But one only needs to look at the performance of the hastily raised divisions to see their potential.

I used the 1937 census ( from memory ) and some math .

"handing infantry weapons to a large group of men and herding them towards the enemy " Than why did you quote Glantz saying that they lack almost anything except
rifles and political officers ?
The antitank guns , 75 % of the tanks, two thirds of the artillery, truck transport , signal , bridging and pioneer equipment was also in service in 1937 for instance. Only a portion of the prewar army was getting new weapon systems ( and those were designed with commonality in mind ) .

The Red Army won the war with reservists and kids called up after the german invasion, the millions of young conscripts they had in 1941 were either KIA, MIA, WIA, POW , (only a fraction of them survived ). It would be interesting to compare the effectiveness of the newly mobilized divisions with the France's reserves which got 8 months to prepare and train.

This post has been edited by osutacincizecisidoi on April 14, 2010 08:58 am

Pokryshkin was the exception rather than the rule within the VVS, but he was himself shot down in a MiG-3 in the early months of the war and barely evaded capture by the Romanian infantry advancing towards Odessa.

The fact that the MiG-3 eventually was retreated from service with the front aviation is a clear indication of how unsuited it was for this type of warfare.

Read my intitial post. Schadenko was the chief of the RKKA Cadre Directorate in that period. I believe that a man in his position would probably know very well how many officers the Red Army needed.

The figure for the purges is not taken from Schandenko's report (it is logical to assume that he could not state in 1938 how many officers Stalin purged between 1937-1941), but from a Russian 1990 publication. I only mentioned it because you brought up the very low figures for the purges.

Schadenko mentions the 67,000 officers that left the army since 1928 (including 5-6,000 that were transferred to the VVS) to show that these "losses" were barely covered by the output of the officer schools. This figure is not included in the 93,000

This:

has nothing to do with what I wrote. Please be more attentive to what is written.

What references the 1990 Russian publication gives for this number ?

My mistake, the figure for 1937-1938 purges is widely publicized. it's based on a report of major general A.T. Ukolov stating 36.761 officers.
However not all of them were arrested ( 10.868 men in the same source ) , and not all of those arrested were shot.

So 36.761 officers removed from command plus 24.000 ( 2.400 times ten ) which left the army between 1928 to 1938 adds up to 60.761 officers.
Lets not disregard the the number which joined the army in these ten years.

Obviously, Schadenko believed that the Red Army needed one officer for every six soldiers ( if he was referring to red army of 1938 )


Edited at Dragos Request

This post has been edited by osutacincizecisidoi on April 19, 2010 09:50 am

deleted

This post has been edited by osutacincizecisidoi on April 19, 2010 09:48 am