Suvorov books, ww-2

We don't talk about "any map". We are talking about millions of detailed topographic maps of their own territory which were missing. Suvorov gives example of an entire army corps of 50 000 men and 900 guns that had 2 maps . How effective was that corp in battle ? Almost useless since it couldn't be coordinated and artillery fire possible only on line of sight which is a significant drawback.

The Stalin line bunkers for your information were abandoned. And secondly there was no defensive plan to be implemented. The first directive signed Timoshenko was nothing else than " beat them were you see them". That's not a plan, that's a joke.
They had to improvise and this lead to confusion and chaos. German army units advancing rapidly and boldly outpaced the confused soviet units that had no plans and acted on rumors.

Solonim explains why the attacks failed and I don't see what I can add to his version.

I did.

The plans for defense on the Stalin line weren't there. By the time they wanted to occupy the line, German spearheads penetrated it in several points. Secondly, the fortifications were abandoned and had no weapons. Suvorov brings examples how the fortifications were covered with earth, lacked keys to open them and didn't even had water canisters, the soldier had to go in nearby villages to brings buckets to have from what to drink.
That's a defensive line ?!

Had they considered even for a moment to defend themselves in 1939-1941, the Stalin line would have been equipped and manned. But you don't seem to question for a moment why this wasn't done. And no, any explanation you bring is worthless. I dare say that. If they wanted to defend themselves, they had the manpower, equipment and the means to prepare 2 fortified lines from the Baltic to the Black Sea, one was ready ( Stalin line ) and one was under construction ( Molotov line ).

The fact they left the Stalin line abandoned and in disrepair can only be explained as being unnecessary. And that situation appears only if they were thinking of attacking, not defending themselves. Qed.

For Halder is the July 11 note, for the second out of the 894 tanks, half were light tankettes, T60/70, which could be penetrated by almost anything we had.

The long barreled P4 could knock a T34 at over 1000m and the T34 couldn't fight back. At Kursk mobility was irrelevant. As for armor, the 60 and 80mm frontal armor of the P4 was comparable with T34/76 so I don't see any advantage.

Panthers were over 200 at Kursk and their superb 75mm L70 with good optics ensured they picked up targets at over 1500m.

Apparently they didn't believe they were weak ( see Stalin's May 5 speech to officer academy ) and that's why they mobilized the country, the army , started the deployment in May and planned to finish it on July 6-10 which is the soviet date of attack.

Strangely, the planned to do the same in Poland and Romania. Even more, the 9th army facing us was staffed with leading officers from Khalkin-Gol.

Either I don't understand English or you're getting the wrong picture : the text reinforces the fact that Japanese Army subestimated the Russians based on stereotypes.

Japan to attack in Siberia on September 10 ? No wonder they lost the war with such smart people in command.

Of course they weren't scared ( When was the Japanese army scared of anything ? Not even of the atom bomb ! ) , they just had been blown to bits in the Mongolian steppe. Which was interpreted by some cool headed people in Tokyo as a sign that the northern expansion has come to a stop.

Have you ever traveled in the countryside in winter ? What you say is plain stupid and against common sense : because of the snow, tanks do not know where lakes and swamps are, everything appear flat, secondly the snow acts as a thermal guard and ice is thin. The tank advances on flat terrain and all of the sudden it sinks as the ice breaks .

This is a joke : YOU COULDN'T USE SUPERIORITY in Finland. There were no roads, there were no open fields. Only forests, marshes and lakes. Whole soviet divisions were crawling like 20-30km long snakes on 4m wide forest dirt roads. And the finish snipers and sky units constantly harassing them and retreating back in the forests.

And the soviets learned. They learned how to fight in this conditions and defeated the finns and penetrated their defensive lines. And this experience was later repeated in the artic, around Leningrad and in the Caucus where your beloved mountain divisions, AlpinJagers or Vanatori de Munte couldn't displace the soviets because they did not had a Finland of their own.

Of course, a mountain corps with 50000 people is insignificant. Maybe it has something to do with the terrain and the communication lines.

This post has been edited by PaulC on June 14, 2012 11:11 am

Sorry, but these are speculations as well until some official documents supporting these theories are released to the public.

Sorry, but these are speculations as well until some official documents supporting these theories are released to the public.

What are speculation ?

Lenin's directives ? The invasion of Poland 1918 ? The comintern ? Stalin's Aug 19 1939 speech ? The colectivization ? The military-industrial buildup ? The number of tanks ? The number of divisions ? Their actual deployment as of June 22 ? Their order to move to attack jump-off position on June 13 ? The various archive documents that show the Operation Thunderstorm plan ?

These are facts . Facts that cannot be countered by explanations like " unfortunate deployment " or "old tank models" or " they've killed 40 000 oficers and decapitated the Red Army ". Which aren't explanations, but pure rubbish.

Rest assured the official documents will get out. Maybe not now, maybe in 2020 or 2040 when Russia will accept its past and be freed from the most horrible human invention : communism and its aftermath.

Up until 1989, the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and the division of Eastern Europe didn't exist. Than the pact and the map with the signatures came out.
Up until 1989, the Red Army had 1800 tanks on June 22. Suddendly they've discovered they've missed 23 000 tanks.
Up until the '90s Stalin's August 19 1939 speech didn't exist. The speech where he explains why the Soviet Union will push Europe to war so they can liberate it later and bring the communist heaven to the capitalist countries.
Up until the '90, reports and orders about pre-war deployment were inaccessible. Now we see how offensive they were and how they prepared everything with total disregard for the German threat, they've were planning their own invasion.
Up until the '90s the official history didn't know how many divisions the Red Army had. Amateurs proved that over 300 infantry and over 100 tank divisions were ready or being completed.

Lots of things weren't know 20 years ago. Imagine what we will know in the next 20 years. The avalanche has just begun.

It's interesting how the "official history" changed its theme :
-originally the Soviet Union was peacefull and dropped the ambition of World Revolution
-then it was agreed they weren't peaceful and didn't drop the ambition of World Revolution
-then it was said they had no intention to attack
-this morphed into, they wanted to attack, but they were unprepared , so the earliest they could attack was 1942-1943.

What's next ? They were wanted to attack, were prepared, but they wouldn't have succeeded ?

It's interesting to look at what our intelligence services perceived the soviet threat of 1940-1941. I've scanned a document , but don't know how to upload it. Dragos, be kind and sent me by pm an email adress to send you a scan so you can upload it as moderator.

This post has been edited by PaulC on June 14, 2012 12:42 pm

The plan for a July 1941 attack is an unproven hypothesis, not a fact.

Most great powers had industrial and military build-up by that time.

You haven't clarified why the deployment was necessarily offensive and not defensive in nature. When I mentioned the deployment plan that consisted of three strategic echelons layered in depth your retort was that Glantz is a Soviet propagandist or something of that sort. A shallow ad hominem.

Also you haven't explained why the Soviet army was planning to attack in July. Why so late?

Can you post some of these archive documents or links to them?

A document such as Hitler's Directive 21 would settle the matter in this case.

Have you tried different free image hosting services? Such us http://imgur.com/

As i said, this show precisely the fact that soviets wasnt prepared for war

yeah, i already said that several times.
Timoshenko orders show just his incompetence, he didnt know what to say, didnt know how to react in a professional manner. Ordering human wave attacks and so on show precisely he wasnt a good commander, and many other lower soviet comanders didnt know what to do, and how to "beat them were you see them", even if they had the numerical superiority on all category of forces, and many time even a qualitatively superiority and was free to react as they saw properly, with such vague order.

And dont tell me that an attack in Polish fields are different then one in Ukrainian fields

Maybe you did, but didnt want to see all. The attacks failled precisely because red army wasnt at all ready for war with a strong enemy, wheter Stalin and his gang thought so or not

Stalin line was dismantled because was useless in 1940-1941 when USSR occupied new teritories and moved the border in west. They wanted to take the materials from Stalin line and use them to build Molotov line, but the Axis assault caught them during that process

Stalin didnt thought the germans will finish that quickly the war on west so the soviets was surprised by whermacht attack, thats simple. I understand however that this is against Rezun hypothesis, so he (and by extenso you, his fan) try to paint the things in other colors and perspective. But thats against all evidence and even logic.

It is indeed useless to argue with you sometimes, is like talking to a concrete bunker wall left on Stalin line, you dimsiss automatically anything that doesnt fit in Suvorovian view of events

Hmm, i dont saw that, so i cant comment. However Manstein seem to have a very different image for Romanian troops that fight under his command in Crimeea. And OKW had no problem to let Romanian army to deal with such important strategic target as Odessa, or ask us to go on with them in Russia.
All this contradict what you say Halder said (which i dont see)

About tanks, lets be serious, Victor i think posted the order of battle of soviet units back then, and the bulk of tanks was T-34 and KV heavy tanks was at least as many as T-70 light tanks
About anything we had, we had actualy few tanks (i think less then a regiment, or i mistake and we didnt had even those) and AT guns able to knock out of battle an T-34 as many as one at few km of front line.
Stalingrad for us was similar with Halhin Gol for japanese, mostly infantry division vs lots of tank division and infantry division. Even more, we lacked the air force japanese had then, and soviet artilery was way much more in numbers

Yes, and you forgot to mention that T-34 arour was a sloped one, which actualy increase (sometimes even double) the armour strenght

Panther was few, i dont think was over 200, i think you confuse this number with Tigers tanks. Russians had however KV tanks, SU tank destroyers and lots of good AT artilery in fortified positions able to fight against heavy german tanks, which made maybe a little more then 10% of all german tanks at Kursk

Maybe they didnt, which means they was a bit out of reality

Well, maybe in Poland, yes. Not so much here. Remember, Danube Delta, FNG line and Carpathians ? Remember that discussion we had, about Pobeda order received by king Michael for shortening the war with at least 6 months (and probably saving at least 1 million soviet soldiers lives in the process)?
That was for the year 1944, with a much better equiped and with more experience soviet army

I think you dont understand, yes. That assesment of japanese officers comes after Halhin Gol battle.
They still kept the same stereotypes about Russians even so (which i assume was not too praising), and they still have plans for an invasion in Mongolia/Siberia. It was just in 1943 when Japanese abandoned all plans for war there and focused just in south, against Americans.
Japan focused more in south (and then China) because they desperately needed resources, especially oil, and not because they lost a battle at Halhin Gol

Yes, i traveled, on foot, on skis, and even with trucks. So i think i can have an opinion, and my opinion is that horse glasses "made in Suvorovland" stop you to comprehend the reality and keep you in fairylands. This is another lame attempt of covering some red army shortcomings

The temperatures during winter, in Finland, are low enough to make possible the establishment of a supply route for besieged Leningrad, over Ladoga lake. During winter was possible for soviet trucks loaded with supplies to pass over the big lake.
A smaller lake or swamp would be even more frozen.
Gosh, even Danube here froze in some winter as much that was possible that entire armies, including cavalry, to pass easily over it during history. And we talk about a latitude more south, closer more to Ecuator then to North Pole, and a huge river with a water flow in top 20 in the world

So yes, during winter was the best for crossing over swamps and small lakes, because they are solid frozen. And the best vechicle to go through big snow is a vechicle on tracks, like tanks for ex., which soviets had a lot.

The fact they wasnt up to task from tactical point of view, or didnt know how to use better their superiority in tanks, artilery and aviation especialy, show precisely they wasnt that ready as you, Rezun or Stalin might think

I am sure they learned some things, but not that was ready to introduce them all over the red army in 1941.
About our Vanatori de Munte, they was just 4 divisions, they couldnt occupy the entire Caucasus area. But they usualy did a good job wherever they fight (Mainstein talked very well about them), and as i said the farthest axis advance in Russia was done by a Romanian mountain division, in Caucasus area. They did a very good job in Hungary and especially Czeckoslovakia too (Tatra mountains) and soviets did indeed hate them very much for what they did to them in WW 2. So much that insisted that all their comanders to be arrested and that Mountain Troops to be completely eliminated from Romanian Army after the war.
German Gebirjaegers was up to the task too, remember they fight in Norway, and occupy it all in couple months? And well, Norway is kinda at the same latitude with Finland?

As i said, the northern front wasnt the main concern for Germans. And unlike you who dismiss any others around except the Suvorov red army, i dont downgrade totally the soviets either, some of them did adapted and fight very well.
They did had lots of people and weapons too however, and yes, some of their wepons was very good as quality too.
Over all they managed to recover and some did fight very well, but they wasnt at all as good as Suvorov try to imply. Interesting, right in the final hours of USSR, trying to depict that Frankenstein like empire as something incredible dangerous and misterious, making secret plans of conquering the world and so on. Which for me sound like an elaborated "maskirova", that type of showing yourself strong when you are weak and weak when you are strong, so maybe escape the pressure.
Fortunately it wasnt the case and USSR disapeared

This post has been edited by udar on June 14, 2012 06:01 pm

Actually, according to Solonim, these are pure myths. Not only did Richard Sorge and other spies give wrong information, but it was impossible from a timing point of view for them to offer valuable clues that even the OKH did not set.

The information passed along ( interesting that nobody shows what messages the spies actually delivered ! ) was to say it politely, full of "crap". ................

I wrote this based on documentaries I have seen and on articles and books I have read. You are answering based on the information you had read.
I do not say that mine is right, or yours, but if we cannot trust most of the literature or other information we process, what can we trust?

Of course, we can trust what we had witnessed in our life, but this is such a short time span, and such an isolate experience. Example: I have an idea about what happened in Bucharest in December 1989, but for the rest of the country I have to trust other statements.

Considering information from various sources... Example: Most sources mention that for political reasons, Stalin sent weaponry to the Spanish Republican government (to counter act against the German and Italian involvement).
From one source I learned something interesting: the Spanish government paid with GOLD all Soviet equipment received.

I begin to read Mr Solonin's book, and I recommend it, it is full of data, included technical data. In his foreword, he put some of his sources, the main sources were documents who were secrets long time. It is interesting he is not 100% in accord with Suvorov, in some parts is critic about his theory.

Its interesting that PaulC refers to Solonin as a sort of follower of Suvorov, considering that in some issues he contradict him (f.i. the attempted counterattacks of soviet mechanized corps in Lithuania and Belorussia as described by Solonin), and, indirectly, he contradicts himself! From the picture portrayed by Solonin seems inconceivable a success of the alleged soviet attack on Germany... otherwise I do not deny the huge scale preparations made by Stalin and the soviet army, the relatively refined arsenal available to the Red Army for a confrontation with Hitler and the Wehrmacht... whether it should be taken as an offensive or defensive operation.
If PaulC would abandon his almost ridiculous theory about the presumed succesful attack (I mean the possibility of Soviet success of the presumed attack and not the possibility of the attack itself!) I probably agree with him in many ways... Solonin's book is not really a bad one, quite the contrary!

Solonin is a very meticulous person, his book has 434 pages and is full of info. He is concentrated about first days of battle and could be defeated and smashed so many Soviet troops in such as short amount of time. In the first part of his book he investigates total desintegration of one mechanized Soviet army corp army after the first contact with inferior German troops.

Indeed Contras, I am referring especially to that part! Just because the soviet mechanised corps whose first battles Solonin so well describes have done such a poor figure in front of Germans (which troops were so weak in comparison!) the obvious conclusion is that 2 or 3 weeks later (the date of the alleged soviet attack on Germany) Soviets could not have done better! I do not think that Stalin and USSR was not prepared for war, I don't believe that the USSR was a victim, she was preparing for aggression, the problem is to assess the chances of success of the alleged soviet agression over Germany (or even Romania f.i.) in summer 1941! And exactly with this statements of PaulC I haven't agreed, in other respects we can talk and even understand each other!

I don't think Stalin and the rest of the leaders of the Soviet Union cared too much about borders from a historical and national point of view.
Ukraine inherited from Soviet Union parts that never belonged before to the Russian Empire. They just grabbed them in the 1940's.
In a coin issued in 1932, the hammer and sickle were shown covering the whole planet.
Well, the Germans were not behind: stamps issued in 1937 show the sun rising above the earth, and the swastika is of course on the sun.

This post has been edited by Florin on June 17, 2012 05:28 am

In 1941 the first shots fired from the Red Army against the Romanian troops were when the latter were in the middle of the Prut River, far from touching the other shore.
But of course, the intention of the Romanian troops crossing the Prut River was obvious.

This post has been edited by Florin on June 18, 2012 02:16 am

The fact that they lost 1 million soldiers to pass through the Mannerheim fortified line is a proof of weakness of the Red Army, not a sign of strength.

In 1939, the total population of Finland was 3,686 million people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Finland

PS: Regarding the 1 million Soviet soldiers lost in the Winter War, it seems numbers are different when the sources are different, but I do not know enough to argue with this information. Victor also presented some data in this topic, but it is not clear to me if they refer to the whole Winter War, or only starting with the moment when Voroshilov was replaced with Timoshenko.

This post has been edited by Florin on June 18, 2012 03:53 am

Interesting - and they worked a lot to create it.
According to that website, in September 1942 Budapest and Bucharest were attacked and hit by the Soviet aviation.
Any comments ?