Suvorov books, ww-2

I think you are overemphasizing the Soviet strength and underemphasizing the German capacity to fight.

Germany had a strong synthetic oil industry in 1941. I also think your 180km distance is wrong again.

This is so ridiculous it's getting funny

Yes, it's not for the faint hearted. They might learn some unpleasant truths about the revered Wehrmacht. Or about who had better leaders, of course unimportant things...

Actually it's the other way round. You're seriously underestimating soviet strength and overestimating the Wehrmacht. The Germans were not prepared for war however difficult and hard to comprehend that might be. The moment things got serious ( Battle of England, Barbarossa ) the shortcomings became apparent.
In the first one, having short range fighters and lacking heavy bombers made it impossible to overcome the RAF.
In Russia lacking fuel, ammunition, lack of motorization, few and obsolete tanks, total dependence on roads meant the party would end pretty soon. Even after capturing the mountains of soviet supplies, vehicles, ammunition, etc the party stopped exactly 5 months after it began.

No they did not. In 1941 synthetic production didn't cover even half the needs of the Wehrmacht ( not to mention the economy ). They had lots of plants under construction but those only compensated what was destroyed by the bombings later in the war. What they planned was >> what was achieved.

Yes, it's 250km to Ploiesti, I forgot.

What's ridiculous is the constant perception of the Wehrmacht as super heroes and the other as idiots.

In Bagration, the Red Army advanced 1000km in 50 days and had less men, less guns, less tanks, less aircraft than the western front had in 1941. And this was against an enemy which was defending, not one surprised by a massive attack.

Soviet operational plans for Thunderstom were conservative, they expected to reach Vistula by day 45 and Oder by day 60. I believed once they penetrated through the main German line in Poland, there was simply nothing that could prevent the Red Army to strike decisively towards Berlin and towards Budapest.
The Germans had no operational reserves.

What's ridiculous is the constant perception of the Wehrmacht as super heroes and the other as idiots.

Both views are ridiculous. That and the one that preceives the Red Army in 1941 capable of crushing the entire Europe in days.

Suvorov must be some Pavel Corut counterpart. No surprise if he will add paranormal elements to his belletristic.

Try to present an argument against Red Army in 1941 not being capable of crushing Europe in 3 to 5 months ? Until now, you're posting OTV-like remarks. In 1944 they advanced 1000km from Smolensk to Warsaw in 2 months. In Manchuria the BT equipped tank brigades traveled 800km in 3 days across the Mongolian deserts with no roads in 1945 to strike the Japanese army. The germans wouldn't have dared to do such a march without railways, the BT tanks did it with 10% mechanical losses. This says everything about weapons quality.

FYI, Hitler Barbarossa timeschedule was a 3 month campaign with end points of Baku, Astrakhan and Arhangelsk. 3000km inside road-less Russia in 3 months. Why couldn't the Red Army do 1500-2000km on European autobahns/high quality roads in 3 to 5 months ?

The Thunderstorm plan was very simple, 3 powerful strike groups :
-one around Byalostock which had to punch through army group centre, expand to Warsaw and then swing north, trapping Army Group North in Prussia
-one around Lvov punching through Army Group South expanding towards Cracow and acting on 2 directions - northern wing moves North towards Warsaw joining the Byalostock pincer catching Army Group Centre and Army Group South remains in a huge pocket - and - another thrusts towards the Pannonian plains ( Budapest ) cutting the link to the south wing of Army Group South ( 11th German + Romanian allies )
-one in Basarabia facing Romania which had to encircle in a pocket around Iasi the 11th and Ro 3rd army , conquer the mountain passes with airborne troops and occupy the oilfields.

The plan was a masterpiece, simple, logical and would have most likely cause the complete destruction of the Wehrmacht in Eastern Poland. The Red Army deployed in accordance with the plan only to be interrupted by the German strike.

This post has been edited by PaulC on June 29, 2012 01:35 pm

Russia was not road-less, just like Europe was not exactly full of high quality roads. Transport infrastructure in Romania was poor for example.

What Russia did in 1944-1945 when its forces poured into Europe proper came after the overstretched German army was attritioned during several years of hard fighting in the large Russian plains.

In a 1941 invasion of Europe Russia would face problems with transport infrastructure, high density of urban areas that have to be taken, relief that offers good points for defense, and only several months of fighting before the worst winter in half a century or more sets in. They would advance but not fast enough, they would get severely attritioned by the highly skilled German army, they would get overstretched and then the winter would set in. The poor morale of the Soviet soldier would collapse completely and then the Soviets would be pushed back.

PaulC, I am little confused... initially you urged us to read Solonin's book "June 22 (The Cask and the Hoops)" but from the book comes out in no way what you are trying to say, I would say quite the contrary... Now you return again to the Suvorov's fantasies (call them dreams it's the same) that are contradicted by both documents, elementary logic and common sense! Up to a point I hoped to bring you to a acceptable reality, imaginable for the period in question... I declare my defeat!
You convinced me now that if the Red Army wanted he could just conquer not just entire Europe, but, if supported by a decent fleet, even America (USA, Canada, Mexico...) and later Asia (they already crushed in summer 1939 the japs!) so by 1942-43 the communism became the master of 3 continents... In conclusion the Providence helped us trough Hitler to hinder the Red Expansion which was ready to conquer the World! The traps of logic lead us in unexpected areas isn't it?

Of course all of this all mighty Red Army in 1941 rolling through Europe in 1941 is utter nonsense. The first true deep operation that Soviet Union could undertake was Operation Saturn, in the end of 1942, thanks to Lend Lease program which delivered the most important element: the trucks, as the domestic production while seeming impressive was not enough to support entire armies overstretched for hundreds of kilometers.

Of course, you can look at the second battle of Kharkov, the first time the Soviets tried to take initiative in the war, and see the most likely result that would have happened in 1941 on any given region. Huge masses of tanks and human waves smashing through the first German divisions only to be eventually channeled and trapped.

Hardly from the end of 1942 onwards Soviet Union could deal crippling blows to Wehrmacht

Because I came to find an interesting book, which analyzes far more seriously the two sides -the Red Army and the Wehrmacht- with their actual capabilities in summer 1941, author which do not contradicted Suvorov about the technical superiority in many heavy weapons (tanks and artillery f.i.) of USSR, I'll post a link where you can read some informations, much more relevant then Suvorov's fantasies...
http://militera.lib.ru/h/stolfi/02.html

This must be the joke of the century which flies in the face of all German complaints that started as soon as June 22 regarding the terrible condition of the Russian roads. Somebody who wants to argue about Barbarossa should at least have read a modicum of books written by Wehrmacht officers. The road less nature of Russia is mentioned everywhere.

As for Europe, as always you don't get the difference : while in Romania there weren't autobahns ( which we don't really have 70 years later ), but a combination of tarmac, concrete and most of the time gravel paved roads. Since Michel the Great the villagers had to transport gravel and pave the roads.

This did not exist in Russia, the roads were dirt roads. On a gravel paved road you can travel in any weather with trucks. On a dirt road, after a summer downpour you're stuck in mud up to the axles. As soon as June 23, the German blitzkrieg was stopped in some parts by torrential rains.

Say what you want, but in Europe, rains didn't stop it neither in Poland, France, Hungary or Romania. Germany tried with great efforts to pave some "highways" in Russia with gravel or with logs ( yes, you heard it right, search corduroy roads in Russia 1941 ). Find me something similar in Eastern Europe, I challenge you.

If I look at the number of tanks, planes, men, guns, they were not really attrition-ed vs. 1941. In fact they've replaced Panzer Is and IIs with Panthers and long barreled PzIVs. The soviets were still fighting with the same T34 they had in 1941. And the soviets had less guns, less tanks, less planes than in 1941.

And what problems would that be ? Too many suitable roads ? Too hard to choose from the multitude of options ?
The railsways ? FYI, the Soviet Union captured half of the Polist railway stock and further increased that with Basarabia and Bukovina. And Bukovina was captured for the sole reason it was the missing link in the European gauge Odessa-Chisinau-Cernauti-Lvov line, parallel to the front. This is mentioned explicitly by Soviet military historians. A simple fact for you : if you plan to defend, this line was useless. If you planned to attack Romania it was heavenly allowing the Red Army flexibility on a North South axis and not tying it to East-West railway end points.

Yes, the polish towns waited for the liberators from German rule. It's hard to take urban areas when inhabitants attack you with flowers.

Fortunately for the soviets, they fought a war in Arctic winter 18 months before and were prepared for this. At the same time, the German army was doing field experiments to prove Hitler it wasn't possible to wage war in winter. In the France/Belgium winter with France/Belgium roads.

Once they penetrated the German lines in Eastern Poland, the soviet mechanized corps would have had operational freedom for action since there weren't any German reserves, no 2nd echelon.
Feel free to explain what would have stopped the massive mechanized corps to take advantage of the developed infrastructure.

Highly skilled ? Half the tank divisions had no combat experience and were done based on infantry ( not cavalry! ) divisions. They lacked AT guns capable of stopping the Soviet medium and heavy tanks.
Besides the main German formations were crowded in Eastern Poland. How exactly would they extricate themselves from there while their communications lines were cut ? Did you actually looked at the Soviet battle plan ? The German main groupings would have been caught as mices in a trap. They had 2 options : stay and be surrounded, flee back and abandon everything that couldn't be carried easily. The same options the main soviet groupings had at Bialostock and Lvov. But of course, I'm not in the slightest surprised you can't see the parallel.

Poor morale ? Only someone who didn't read any intelligence reports about soviet aggressiveness and provocations prior to June 22 would say something as stupid as this. They were ready and were highly motivated to free the oppressed proletariat of Europe.

You're confused because you're not really thinking the issue at all. Solonin's books explains Red Army performance after June 22. In no way does it say what would have happened had there been no German attack.
What Solonin says, supporting Suvorov theories is that the Soviets planned to attack Germany in early July, they deployed accordingly and were in the final steps with their preparation. His second points is to dispel myths , like the ramblings you and a few other posters here propagate, about Soviet lack of radios, lack of trucks, incomplete formations, etc. This further reinforces Suvorov's theme : the Red Army was ready to attack. That it didn't do well at all in defense for various reasons ( see Solonin's explanations ), that's something else.

Do yourself a favor and read all of Suvorov's books. Until now, you've read none, that's obvious. You are clueless on what he says, what evidence he brings and how things FIT TOGETHER .
As for documents, look like I'm the only one around here posting figures. Everybody else has only opinions. You know what they say about opinions, don't you ? As for elementary logic and common sense, that's hypocritical to the roof.
Let me give you an example : Dragos says the Soviets couldn't attack because they did not have enough trucks, they could only do so when they received trucks from lend lease. To someone who actually studied the problem things are very simple :
-he has no clue what the soviets had on June 22, no of trucks and the state of the motor industry
-he fails elementary logic : they didn't had trucks in late 1941 and 1942 ( until Saturn ) so they couldn't attack in June 1941. He fails completely to grasp that the Red Army lost 2/3 of its trucks after June 22 1941 because of the German attack. Their lack of trucks until internal production recovered + lend lease is in no way an indicator of mechanization in June 1941. It is that hard to comprehend and link a few simple facts together ? Apparently yes.

Your attempt to bring the discussion in derisory is dully noted. Says something about one's depth of thinking.

You must have done poorly in logic classes in highschool/university, sorry to say that. It is obvious you can't grasp the simple cause-effect relation with regards to soviet mechanization.

Why didn't the Soviet Union have enough trucks before Operation Saturn and Lend Lease trucks ? Because they've lost them in summer 1941. Why did they lose more than 200,000 trucks ? Because they were attacked and not the ones attacking.

In June 1941 they had around 500k trucks and artillery tractors available, 1 truck for every 8 persons, 7 trucks for any gun. They didn't had as many not even in 1944-1945.

What's more : the soviet industry could produce trucks on a scale comparable with the US only, dwarfing the German auto industry. Why ? Because it was build with US machinery of the latest design offered by Budd Company of Detroit and employed the mass scale Fordism ( ( The Soviet Economy and the Red Army, Walter Scott Dunn ).

The ZIS plant had 40,000 workers in 1940 and was doing 70,000 trucks already in 1938.
The Yaroslav Plant had 15,000 workers in 1938 and could produce 1100 trucks/ month.
The Kim Plant in Moscow was build by Ford Motor Co, 10000 workers and was designed to produce 24000 autos per year.

Soviet trucks production was severely disrupted by the German attack. Factories had to be moved to the Urals, some, like the works in Leningrad or those in Moscow were surrounded or bombed. Soviet trucks production went to shatters in second half of 1941 and 1942, starting to recover only in 1943.
FYI, here are the production figures of trucks :
1941 : 100,000 internally ( most in first half, so yearly production was well over 150k ) lend lease 10,000
1942 : 70,000 internally, lend lease 50,000
1943 : 80,000 internally, lend lease 110,000
1944 : 100,000 internally, lend lease 130,000

Only in 1944 did Soviet internal production reach the level of 1941 ( a handicapped year since after August virtually little was produced as factories were being moved East ).

I'm going to post this only once : the Red Army was a mechanized army. It had in June 1941 almost as many trucks as horses in the Wehrmacht ( 272,600 trucks in June 22 + another 240,000 trucks and tractors to be taken in the 1st week of war from the civilian economy as mobilization was declared ). We're talking 510,000 trucks and tractors . As Solonin points out, the Red Army didn't lacks vehicle transport. It's artillery was motorized, the Wehrmacht was horse drawn. One army was in the 20th century, the later was fighting as Napoleon did at 1812 with horses.

Had the soviets attacked, the factories would have produced vehicle transport on a scale which would have dwarfed anything else in the world. And what's more important, US help was guaranteed to come with or without the German invasion, being agreed as early as 1940.

You haven't read Suvorov so your opinion about his claims aren't worth a dime. And instead of generic ramblings with no hard figures, why not actually read the guy ? Maybe you'll suffer and enlightenment moment. To me it's obvious you and most of my fellow debaters are pretty thin about war on the Eastern front, dragging the discussion to the level of TV documentaries and films. It's perfectly fine if that's the level of knowledge gathered, seasoned with general myths and folklore, but don't drag the discussion into derision with Providence remarks and blog level links.

This post has been edited by PaulC on July 02, 2012 08:41 am

Gosh, this is still going on

PaulC, as i said before, you are too stuck on Suvorovian view of things and seem unable to look at any other perspective, or even to reality.

Nobody denies that USSR was preparing for war, i too agree that Stalin supported Hitler because he was afraind of a new coalition of "capitalist" countries against him (like the one at the end of WW 1, during civil war in Russia).

Having Hitler as a "breaker" of that possible coalition, even as an enemy of those it was good for Stalin. However, you (and your idol, Rezun) seem to look at things just from numbers perspective (of soviet build up), and ignore or give childisih or silly explanations for the failures of red army (or even hilarious afirmations, as red army conquering all Europe in 4 months or so . ).

What you seem to not understand (despite what you saw at and at some point even agree with Solonin) and what Suvorov try to cover (in a sometime silly sometime skilful way) is the crumble of red army in 1941, and its bloody (for their own troops) performance all over the war.

Despite what you said at one point, about red army made up by Baltics, Moldavians (meaning Romanians, right?), Ukrainians and so on, the bulk was made of Russians (Bielorussians included too) and loyal Ukrainians and so on. I doubt it was many Romanians, Baltics or Poles there, so the explanation that they crumbled because of this nationalities deserted is a little hilarious. This nationalities i dont think made more then few percents of red army.

The truth was that despite the material build up (quantity and in some cases quality too) the psychological one, the training, the quality of command and so on was low.
There is no such thing as an army prepared for war (even ofensive war) to not be able to fight in defense too, if is needed.

It is improbable that an army who was geared for defense (thus the build up of Stalin line and the attempt to build the Molotov line) and switched (acording to Rezun) for offensive in just couple years isnt able to put up some resistance.

It is hard to believe that commanders and troops trained to do offensive and flanking maneuvres on the fields of Poland suddenly arent able to do exactly the same on the fields of Ukraine or Belarus.

The performance of red army in Finland was low, despite the victory. The lessons learned there i am not sure was spread all over the red army until 1941 (more then probably not).

From tactical point of view russians was weak, as psichological pov, despite the propaganda presenting all kind of heroism acts, many soldiers was (as Solonin said) even lower then Axis soldiers allied of Germany both as training and morale. This led even to use of "death sqauds" behind the lines to shot those who retreat (Germans used this too later).
And this even if some retreated not because they was cowards, but because of the front situation, retreated to find a better position and to fight back when recover

Soviet comanders doesnt show much, they fight most of the war with tactics from WW 1, just using WW 2 weapons.

All this leaded to incredible losses, bigger then all other participant countries put together.
<<In 1944 the Soviets still managed to lose 23 700 fully tracked AFVs of which only 2 200 were light tanks: the highest number of AFV losses in a single year by any country in history.(20)>>
(20) G.F. Krivosheev , et al, Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century, Edited by Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev, Greenhill Books, London, 1997. p. 253, table 95.

This losses come in a period when Germany lost 40% of its armored fighting vechicles production (due to Allies bombardments) and was spread too in Italy and France, losing as well Italy, Romania and Finland, all of this changing sides

<<One very significant point about these figures is that if we remove the 11 900 AFVs received by the Soviets via Lend Lease, and allocate all German WWII fully tracked AFV production to the Wehrmacht’s East Front forces (i.e. add those lost fighting the Western Allies), then the Germans would have only needed kill loss ratio of 2.45 to 1 in order to have destroyed all Soviet fully tracked AFVs that existed on 22nd June 1941 (23 300 AFVs) and all 99 150 fully tracked AFVs produced during the war (122 450 AFVs). This figure is well below the 2.94 to 1 kill-loss ratio historically achieved. These figures demolish another more recently fashionable myth relating to the East Front; specifically that the Soviets (largely due to the huge number of T-34s produced) could have won WWII without any input from the US or Commonwealth forces. This is before we even consider the effects of increased German production (of all weapon types) due to the absence of Allied strategic bombing, the direct effects of German air superiority on the East Front from 1943 onwards, the effects of the Red Army loosing over half its motorised transport, and the effects of 9-10 000 additional (and fully supplied) heavy 88mm flak guns on the East Front from 1941 onwards.>>

http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-Buster...tml#top_of_page

All this show that (as Solonin said and as Germans consider too, see the link of ANDREAS) the red army was a headless colossus with clay feet. Big, but with a poor comand and a low morale, training and combat abilities.

I really doubt that in the situation they would start the offensive in west they would fight better when things will go bad. Or they would be really able to overcome quickly strong positions or strong armies. They had the material means (just partialy however, for ex the air force, even big, lacked quality aircrafts on par with others) but didnt had the training, morale and cohesion of troops, and lacked too good comanders on tactical level, and even strategic.

I show the difference of views of Halhin Gol battle, an obvious soviet success but kinda blow up of proportions by soviet propaganda. This because Japanese officers view of soviet troops was still bad even after that, and they didnt continued the war there in Mongolia because they focused more in south, for aquiring that necessary resources for them (especially oil).

To not be understanded that i praise extraordinary the wehrmacht, the germans had their own problems and weaknesess ofcourse, and wasnt any "supehumans" either

This post has been edited by udar on July 02, 2012 01:29 pm

If you want to be taken seriously you must learn to discuss in a civilized manner.

As for your figure around 500,000 trucks, here is a source that states SU had 272,600 trucks in June 1941, while by the Leand Lease programme US offered 351,715 trucks.

Source: http://books.google.ro/books?id=dcAgT_2uiY...epage&q&f=false

PaulC: I suggest to reconsider your tone to a more friendlier approach and drop veiled insults or I'll have you take a break from this forum

I'm am pretty civil. Calling someone for their inaccurate information is civil. If someone says a stupid thing, calling that stupid isn't an offense. It's hard reality. And no amount of political correctness can change that. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar - to quote a legend.

Look at this for example : you're quoting the same book I've used. But the 272,600 refers only to Red Army vehicles as of June 22.
Once the mobilization plan MP41 was enacted, it planned the additional mobilization of 5,5 million men and around 240,000 IIRC trucks and tractors from the civilian economy by day 7.

I will be as friendly as possible. In the same manner, I expect you to better substantiate your replies. It can only improve the discussion, don't you think ?

Just to remind you were the bar is set :

I agree we can do better than this.

This post has been edited by PaulC on July 02, 2012 02:54 pm

The thing is you cannot carry a debate. If someone contradicts your opinions, he is met with insults.

The fact that I consider Suvorov writings similar to Pavel Corut's fantasy writings does not insult anybody, does it? And you put things in my mouth saying that "What's ridiculous is the constant perception of the Wehrmacht as super heroes and the other as idiots."

So the hard fact is the the Red Army did not have 500,000 trucks, but half that number in June 1941. I want to see how many additional trucks they have requisitioned from the civilians after the war started. Until then, affirmations like:
"It had in June 1941 almost as many trucks as horses in the Wehrmacht" or
"In June 1941 they had around 500k trucks and artillery tractors available, 1 truck for every 8 persons, 7 trucks for any gun. They didn't had as many not even in 1944-1945." are based on nothing. Sources please.