Suvorov books, ww-2

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.

The 1 million losses are utter BS ( 3x exaggeration ).

Krivoshyev's team compiled the most accurate assessment of Red Army losses in ww2. For Finland we have :

Soviet Union:
127000 dead and missing
190000 injured
6000 captured
Total losses : 323000 men.

Finland :
26000 dead
44000 injured
1000 captured
Total losses 71000 men

Ratio 4.5 in favor of the Fins. An attacker is expected to have losses 3x or higher than the defenders, especially when the later are housed in fortified lines. Considering the added features of the battlefield ( winter in Finland, swampy area, forests, no roads, only small dirt tracks in the wood ), the feat is even more daring.

While the losses might sound high, I don't see nothing wrong with it considering the differences : it's one thing to fight housed in fortifications, be treated in a warm bunker underground and the totally different life for the attacker with sleeping under the clear sky in the forest at -30C, clearing mines under snow and under enemy sniper fire and being treated ( if you could be recovered from the enemy line ) in a tent when outside it's -30 or worse.

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

No, it simply shows two things :
1. You aren't thinking the issue at all.
2. You aren't reading or alternatively, you're reading but fail to comprehend the matter.

Not having enough maps of your OWN TERRITORY is perfectly fine when you plan to ATTACK somebody, you NEED maps of HIS TERRITORY ( which they had in the hundreds of millions ). If the war starts with an enemy attack and you're forced to fight on your own territory, this issue becomes a catastrophic drawback, you're suddenly SOL and coordination falls apart.

The soviets were damn well prepared if only in the WESTERN Fronts they've lost 200 MILLION MAPS. But BEING maps of POLAND and ROMANIA they were as useful as WC paper inside the SOVIET UNION.

Comprehend re ?

Again, this shows how much they've thought of defense. They didn't even prepare a back up set of plans if the Germans got nasty. Instead of "beat them were you see them", had he prepared defensive plans he would have sent "Open Red Envelopes marked strictly secret no 5 to 7, Apply scenario 3 ". But he had nothing of the kind so he improvised between 2 meetings.

That's BS and in no way what happened after June 22 is an indication of Red Army performance had they attacked as planned in July.
Secondly, the whole matter screams to the Gods of logic : they weren't prepared for war with a strong enemy on June 22, but after losing 5 million men, 20000 tanks, 70000 guns they were able to beat the said enemy and throw it back 200km. What king of logic is that ? You aren't strong when you're fit and in one peace, but are stronger with both arms broken ?

You constantly amazing me. You have one complete line of fortifications. The border moves 300-400km to the west. You start to build a new line. According to you the 2nd becomes useless. To me it's the best possible scenario for defense.
Not only you build a new line, but you keep the old one as a back up, if the enemy penetrates the first it will shatter against the second. This was a unique chance for the Soviet Union.

It is obvious to everyone but you and the soviet propaganda machine that had to prove the soviet leadership was stupid to hide their true agenda that having 1 full line and 1 in construction is worse than 1 abandoned and 1 in construction. Only you and the soviets could claim having 1 complete and 1 incomplete walls between you and the most likely enemy is worse than 1 incomplete.

Don't you feel safer if between you and a raged lion there are 2 fences instead of 1 ?

So what exactly are you trying to prove here? That the soviet leaderships were idiots who didn't know this simple thing ? Or maybe you take us, the readers and participants of this forum as idiots ?

It's useless because you don't think at all, sorry to say that, you simply replicate the garbage fed by the soviet propaganda who had to hide the Soviet Union's role and intentions.

Surovov asks a simple question : if Soviet Union was afraid/unprepared for war, why did they abandon the finished Stalin line ? You can't answer that. And if you say " they did it because the border moved west by 300km and they needed equipment to complete the new Molotov line" you're insulting the intelligence of the forum members here.

The whole Molotov line was a huge deception for the Germans and people like you. That line wasn't meant for a second to repulse an enemy attack. And it didn't. Not only did they build it under the German's nose who saw the work places.
Imagine the dialogue :
Hans - Look Fritz, the russians are building fortifications on the other side, they are preparing for defense !
Fritz - But they are idiots. We can see them. Our artillery knows their location and can prepare firing solutions to blow them up. Something is fishy, they can't be that idiots ! Maybe they want to fool us ?

Unfortunately for you, you've taken the bait and swallowed it completely. Not much thinking sauce added for flavor. The Germans didn't believe the soviet maskirovka ( deception ) and as soon as they were ready to attack they've pulverized the soviet emplacements of the Molotov line. Actually, I'm wrong. The Germans didn't even notice in the fighting the Molotov line. Because it wasn't meant to be used for defense. Because it wasn't occupied by the Red Army troops who were hiding in the forests waiting for their own attack date.

I'll photocopy Halder's journal so you can see how ready we were. No wonder we crashed before Odessa.

Both the 75mm L43/48 and L70 could destroy a T34 at over 1km ( the later even from 2 km ). The reverse was not true.

The Delta, FNG line and the Carpathians weren't real obstacles for 2 reasons :
-most Axis forces were in Moldova. If the front was broken, lack of vehicles would mean they couldn't match the pace of the attackers
-Strong soviet forces were positioned in Galitia to break through the hungarian and slovak lines and fall into northern Transylvania and the Pannonia steppe. We didn't had any forces there to repulse them. So even assuming by some miracle, we held the Carpathian line, they would fall behind us.

If you're so confident on crossing frozen rivers and lakes with vehicle I suggest you take your car and try crossing a snow covered lake next winter at -20C. If you make it, I'll pay you again the value of the car.

Actually the reverse is true. A big lake like Ladoga allowed blizzard to developed that removed the snow which acted as a thermal blanket. But small lakes and rivers in forests were snow covered which acted as insulation and the ice wasn't very thick. And Ladoga was crossed by trucks, not tanks. Nobody was stupid to take a T28 or a T35 over frozen lakes as you suggest.

Infantry and cavalry, not mechanized units. I said soviet tanks were sinking in lakes and marshes they couldn't see under the snow, not the infantry.

Just to bring you up to date : Norway in winter isn't really cold. Why ? Because of the Gulfstream, a large current that takes warm water from the Caribbeans to Norway's shores. That's why they have the best fishing grounds and ports which do not freeze. Also ,there's a lot of snow, humidity, but it's not very cold.

OTOH, in Finland, the direct influence is Siberian winds. Which you can imagine what they bring.

It points something else : the German army wasn't prepared to fight in conditions similar to what the Russians encountered in Finland. Not only they didn't penetrated a fortified line in winter, they couldn't approach a small town in summer having advanced 24km in 3 months of summer.

This lack of experience and training would show itself bitterly in the winter of 1941.

I suggest you read more about the ideologies involved, the philosophy behind them and maybe you'll understand why they did what they did.

This post has been edited by PaulC on June 18, 2012 01:02 pm

This figure appear in Hruschev memories. Mannerheim estimated 200000 deaths in Soviet army during Winter war.

I think you are simplifying too much the way the two sides carried their war.
The Finns didn't just stay buried in those fortifications all the time.
They launched daring counterattacks. They sent daily troops on skis who harassed the Soviet supply routes behind the frontlines.
They were fighting in the same minus 30C "enjoyed" by the Soviet troops.
The war was carried in the air as well.

Exactly. That they managed to overcome such an enemy and started displaying the same traits is a testimony to their adaptability. They weren't the blithering idiots udar and the soviet propaganda tries to portray them. There's no need for shame, what happened in Finland was cruel, unnecessary and it made sense only in the diabolical master plan that was consuming Stalin for decades. But it was a triumph against unimaginable hardships.

Also true. But after the fight, the finish soldiers retreated in their bunkers and enjoyed a sauna while the soviet troops slept in the forest at the same minus 30C. Quite a difference, wouldn't you say ?

This post has been edited by PaulC on June 18, 2012 06:12 pm

First of all, i suppose you take the number of those maps from your idol, Suvorov, right?
Second, it is laughable to believe soviets doesnt had maps of their own teritory (where they had builded that Stalin line and trained for defending it). That just kindergaten kids may believe

As Solonin said the soviet army was very well in position to execute counter-atacks and flanking atacks against german advancing troops. Same maneuvres they would need to do in Poland if they would invade first, absolute no diference.
Yet they crumbled or panicked, and instead of attack they start run back, creating a cascade effect with disastrous consequences.
Thei air force was unable to act in any significant way (and they still enjoyed numerical superiority after first phases of axis assault).

This isnt that they didnt had a plan perfected, is that they was paralyzed by fear, lower rank comanders wasnt able to think independently, and higher rank ones from Moscow didnt know what to told them, because wasnt quite the military geniuses some may think. There is no such thing as an army to not be able to fight in defence too, and that red army was good just to invade Europe. If they thought so then yes, they was idiots

I didnt consider germans to be perfect either, they had their own drawbacks too, and spread too thin there, make strategic mistakes and so on. Allowing the soviets to regroup. Then Allies help start to grind down the german war machine and Hitler and nazis start to make even more strategic mistakes, allowing the soviets to recover even more and finaly push them back

Why the heck to keep the Stalin line at 400 km? If they would be that scared why to not build a line around Moscow, a third line? And one around Kiev, a fourth one?
The logic of things (less for Rezun) was to build a new line near the borders that need to be protected. And to use materials from the former line, now obsolete. Despite that huge build up soviets wasnt that "large hand" to keep unecessary things
The problem for soviets was that war in west ended too quickly for their expectations (for everybody expectations actually, after all french army was considered probably the best in the world at that point-1940).
So they was caught right in the middle of that re-arrangement of defensive positions

You say this, not me

I think you create false targets to fight easy with them, but is not the case. I never said the soviets didnt wanted the war, or didnt prepared for war. I said that from tactical and even strategical point of view they wasnt up to the task, even if they consider they are.
I said that they didnt expected the quick end of war in west, so their invasion plan was rolled over its head, as they wasnt quite ready in 1941.
You are the one adamantly believeing in new soviet propaganda spread by Suvorov that partialy replaced the old soviet propaganda, but have some common elements.

Solonin is the one who seem much more realistic in describing the things and the events, and dont give fantasmagoric responses for red army failures, as Suvorov or official soviet and russian propaganda. Yes, he agree too with the war plans (and i agreed as well) just that he didnt see the red army back then as the well oiled ruthless war machine ready to swallow the world, as Suvorov depict it.

Molotov line wasnt too helpful because wasnt ready at the moment of german attack. And when was started to be build the german army was kinda busy in west north and south of Europe, so not quite much of Fritz looking at Ivan building some bunkers in Poland. You know, this was actually the best moment for a soviet sneaky attack, which didnt come, but the soviets started to build a new fortified defence line

Actually what crashed first was the soviet defence of Odessa, as they abandoned the city, wasnt able to stand the pressure. And from strategic point of view Odessa was more important then Leningrad (who wasnt abandoned), and at least as easy to be supplied as the soviet navy enjoyed a significant numerical superiority in Black Sea

As i said Panthers was very few at Kursk, so L70 didnt counted too much there. And T-34 was in greater numbers then P-IV there, better armoured and with greater mobility. It was indeed their lack of ergonomy, comunication means, lack of better gun and optics and training that make them lose that many

Gee, i wonder why Stavka didnt thought such creative, and considered it will take some half a year (and who knows how many human and material losses) to accomplish that? Or probably Stalin was such a great guy and gived the highest soviet medal to Michael just because he liked kings or something?

Their tanks was BT and T-26 too, you know, not just T-35. A Zis truck, empty, weight almost a half of a T-26. I really doubt that a fullly loaded Zis passing over Ladoga lake (which was usualy bombed by german artilery too), was in a better position then a T-26 crossing over a frozen swamp at -40 Celsius.

It was a show of incompetence from red army to send troops not used to weather there, and it was a lack of training and tactic how they acted. Sure, they win at the end, but they show they arent quite the strong army some like to think they are, or was.

Norway coast line maybe, inland they have lower temperatures, sometimes closer to that in Finland. And they have some mountains too that make the use of tanks not too easy. And they was helped by an anglo-french expeditionary corp and navy too.

Or german army didnt had as one of main targets the northern Russia and Murmansk?
But yes, they was not too well prepared for winter, as i said germans wasnt perfect either. This doesnt mean the soviets where better either

I thought i told you what i think about Stalin and soviet "ideology" back then.
It was a mix of attempting to imitate their former mongol masters (which blended with russians) style of conquer the world, with Stalin as a kind of modern Genghis Khan, mixed with the fear of being invaded by foreigners (as they experienced in history).
All this was "dressed" in comunist clothes and hidden under the idea of "world revolution of proletariat" (under soviets control and comand, ofcourse).
I dont want to get more deep in some occult conspiracy theories now.

This post has been edited by udar on June 18, 2012 07:30 pm

Re: Stalin and Finland: there is a "simple" explanation for his utmost concern for Finland - he led the peace talks between the newly formed USSR and the newly independent Finland during the Civil War, after the Finns beat the crap out of the Reds and pretty much drawn their own fronteers. That also explains why Mannerheim was willing to concede land in 1939, because from the Finnish side the participants were him and Paasikivi. Thus, we are safe to say that the Moscow talks in 1939 were quite a re-editing of the talks in 1917/18!

Excellent point. On top of this, we must remember Finland's strategic important : the key demand from the soviets was naval bases in the Baltic sea so they could restrict German ore imports from Sweden.

The Germans were always in shortage of transport trucks, because their industry tried to cope with demand for armored fighting vehicles.
Any operable truck available in the Axis controlled Europe was good for the German army.
This was a nightmare for the mechanics, who had to work with all kind of various spare parts - if they were available. They had to use 2000 types of different spare parts.

This post has been edited by Florin on June 20, 2012 04:06 am

I must say that I read the chapters you were talking about, but they do not confirm any hypothesis of a successful soviet offensive on Romania. They confirm a well known fact (even at that time!) of the technical superiority of the Red Army over the Romanian one, but not the real possibility of a "Stalingrad like operation" in 1941 as you claimed!

I must say that I read the chapters you were talking about, but they do not confirm any hypothesis of a successful soviet offensive on Romania. They confirm a well known fact (even at that time!) of the technical superiority of the Red Army over the Romanian one, but not the real possibility of a "Stalingrad like operation" in 1941 as you claimed!

There is none because I wasn't referring to that when I pointed out Solonim's book. Solonim explains why the soviet mech corps failed in the Soviet Union after June 22 which answers your dilemma regarding why they didn't achieved more in their counterattacks

Whether or not, they would have been successful in accomplishing a double pincer movement as planned, trapping the German 11th and Romanian 3rd army around Iasi, that's a different debate. June 22 shattered the basis of their planning and I'm not surprised the soviets were more concerned with destroying the Germans forces attacking towards Lvov , Kiev and Minsk rather than attacking Romania ( and their forces weren't ready for this anyway right after June 22.

And just to make things clear for you and everybody on my view which surmises Solonin's point : the Red Army planned meticulously an offensive operation which was due to be launched in July 6-10 1941. The mindset of the men, the plans, the propaganda was all directed for liberating Europe.
The German surprise came as a total shock and the weaknesses of the soviet regime were fully exposed : like all terror based dictatorial regimes a crack in the myth of invincibility, superiority and prowess lead to complete loss of morale and confidence. The myths were shattered. The genius of Stalin, the invincibility of the Red Army, the wisdom of the communist party were put in debate. The representatives of the terror were running for their life, not as much threaten by the Germans than by local nationalists. All wounds that didn't heal, the civil war terror, the collectivization, the destruction of the villages, the famine, the beatings, the torture sprung to life. The soviet soldier became empty inside, not knowing what to believe. He's confidence in the Soviet Union leadership was destroyed. Memories of events like the cannibalistic famine in Ucraine, the purges, the deportation ( there wasn't a single soviet citizen who didn't had a relative or neighbor who wasn't arrested for fabricated charges ) suddenly resurfaced after being consciously repressed ( critical thinking of the Soviet regime would earn you a nice 10 polar excursion ). So it was best to put all that behind like an ugly dream.

But the German attack unleashed all the repressed revolt : what I am fighting for ? For the NKVD who took my family land with the pistol in hand ? Who beat/killed members of my family/relatives/neighbor ? The soviet colossus turned brittle in a few days. And the men saw this and acted accordingly. This is Solonin's explanation for the disaster of June-October 1941.

Would things be different had the soviets attacked first ? I believe so. First of all, the mindset was there, the propaganda was there, romanian and german sources talk about aggressive behavior of the Red Army before the june 22 attack. So they were fired up. There was no debate of the communist regime, the system was working flawlessly. This was shown in Spain, in Mongolia, in Finland, in the occupation of the Baltic states and Basarabia.

When they were the agressors, the Red Army worked. I believe it would have been no different had Operation Thunderstom be unleashed on Europe in July 1941. They would have attacked with ferocity, like in Mongolia and Finland, without regard to losses. They had a tremendous superiority in tanks, planes and guns and countless divisions. In the first week of the mobilization the Red Army raised another 5 million men and 12 for the whole of 1941. That's like 4x what they had at the border. The system worked even amid the disaster. Had they been the ones attacking, there was no shortage of men and equipment to fill in the losses and exploit the breakthroughs.

And I'm also sure the Wehrmacht wouldn't have kept pace with this. There were no operational reserves, everything was committed to the front. And a few dozen second hand divisions in France and Norway couldn't save the situation.


This post has been edited by PaulC on June 22, 2012 02:11 pm

A soldier who questions what he is fighting for when his own country is attacked won't do a great job fighting far from home.

PaulC I agree with you when you describe the causes of the unimaginable disaster of the Red Army in the summer of 1941... they can be extracted from the Solonin's book, but it's helpful that you have synthesized and assembled them this way!
In terms of what could have happened if the Red Army attacked first in july 1941, here I separate myself from your opinion... I think it is possible that the Red Army achieve some success, even take a part of Poland from the Germans, but a defeat of Germany I can't imagine... I also not exclude a successful soviet attack in Romania, perhaps occupying the entire territory east and south of the Carpathians... but with heavy losses! A more pessimistic variant for the Reds could mean the destruction of some large soviet attack groups in Poland and maybe some German counterattacks in august-september 1941 who could determine the same Soviet large mess we read happened in late june-july 1941 in reality... We can't know, these are just assumptions...
Imperialist, I agree with your perspective!

This post has been edited by ANDREAS on June 24, 2012 03:55 pm

Considering that Red Army comprised of Ukrainians, Moldavian, Biellorussians, Baltic people, who saw the communist regime as an occupier rather than harboring nationalistic feelings the comment stands. They fought when pushed in Spain, Mongolia and Finland.

Secondly, I notice you're not aware of the simple fact that nationalism was completely eliminated from the Soviet Union in the '20s and '30s. Internationalism was the word of the day. A true communist was an internationalist who if asked had to promote even anti-national measures against his own country ( like our romanian communists who asked for Romania to be split-ed ! ).

There was no national fervor in the Soviet Union before June 22. Everything was about the World Revolution and the liberation of the European proletariat. After June 22, Stalin seeing his armies disintegrating when asked to fight for communist ideals had to resort to Russian nationalism resurfacing Napoleon War era heroes and the Orthodox Church.

Read this again. Read it 2 times, 3 ,4, 5, 6 times. Are you serious ? Germany was defeated 5 months after they attacked the Soviet Union losing 25% of the Ost Heer. After all the soviet losses, they stopped and bloodied the Wehrmacht, making the armaments minister Todt exclaim to Hitler : the war is lost.

Germany lost the war on Sept 1 1939, in fact they lost it on August 23 1939. The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact sealed the fate of Germany. No matter what they did, they lost. That was the moment Stalin shouted : I cheated Hitler! He didn't know at the time, Hitler would reverse the favour in June 1941 and didn't wait like a lamb before the butcher to be destroyed. With the desperation of the man who has nothing to lose, Germany tried to achieve the impossible : defeat the monstruos Soviet Union, a prison the size of a continent with a population enslaved for weapons production and maintaining a militarized dictatorship.

In the best possible scenario, catching the Red Army as it prepared its own attack, Germany failed. All the odds were against it. And this was set on August 23 1939.
Had the Red Army attacked first, the Wehrmacht would have been crushed in Poland. With the Luftwaffe destroyed on the ground, troops concentrated into indefensible positions, all their stocks captured or set on fire, no reserves in the back, the Wehrmacht would have fought with desperation a battle it could not reverse, only delay the outcome.

I ask a very simple question : after losing in the initial war period over 10 million people, 20000 tanks, 70000 guns, 20000 planes, 250000 trucks , having lost the main agricultural regions of the country, the main coal region, the main heavy industry region, the aluminium industry, 303 ammunition factories, 500k tons of ammunition, countless reserves of rare minerals, rubber, fuel, etc the Red Army stopped the Wehrmacht, defeated 80% of Germany's war effort and ended the war in Berlin.

Without those losses, all those men, equipment attacking Europe, all the industry intact and delivering 2-4x the output of the German one, with US material support you expect them to reach an impasse ?

It is simply absurd. In the first half of 1941 , the Soviet Union produced more weapons than Germany for the entire year. And this was just the ramp up.

Germany stood no chance : they had no reserves, they had no weapons to arm a mass mobilization. The Luftwaffe was bloodied after England and Crete, they had 4700 tanks in all vs. 20000+ for the soviets. Ploiesti oilfields were 180km away from the 9th army. Having lost the Romanian oil and with no significant synthetic industry ( this came produced fuel in significant amounts only in 1943/1944 ) Germany could not hope to fight more than 30-45 days before running out of oil. They reached Moscow by capturing Russian supplies. Without those, the Wehrmacht would have collapsed pretty quickly.

So in short : starting the war severely handicapped the Red Army won. Had they attacked first, they had all the advantages. Every single one. The only question is in how much time they would have reached Brest and Pas de Calais. 90 days ? 150 days ?

This post has been edited by PaulC on June 28, 2012 12:04 pm

this one is new in town. I did not read it, yet.

http://www.polirom.ro/catalog/carte/sinuci...sovietica-4619/