Suvorov books, ww-2

Yeah, maybe they planned it or maybe they did not. In the end they never did that, so it is a moot point. Does it deserve two pages of speculation and a week-long ban? I don't think so.
Radu

Most of the thread is pure speculation. Although PaulC keeps telling us how massive the Soviet forces were, that is not proof of the existence of a plan to attack in July.

Actually there is.

But, instead of copy-pasting, I direct you to the most comprehensive analysis of the Soviet operational plan for Operation Thunderstorm.

http://www.solonin.org/en/article_comrade-...ins-three-plans

Well, i still dont get how someone can still believe in a cartoon like or Hollywood fantasy action movie like actions, with paratrooper divisions launched on mountains. This in conditions that they dont even have air superiority

Now about Solonin

http://www.solonin.org/en/article_comrade-...ins-three-plans

So "northern plan" was scraped

As it can be see, the offensive plan present a large scale attack through Poland and Hungary, attacking Romania from west, and not from east, to avoid Carpathians, Danube Delta and FNG line. It doesnt even presume it will take all Romania, precisely because of terrain i suppose, and dificulties to wage a prolonged war here. Parts of Hungary will be probably not that important in the run for Berlin

Here STAVKA presume a counterattack of German and Romanian forces (westerners) who overran Bessarabia and cross over the Dniester in what is today Ukraine. This forces are to be meet by encircling maneuvres.

Interesting, this is what actually happened, Romanian and German armies crossing there, but Soviet army being unable to act like in that "war game" they played just few months before.

Solonin use somehwere too words like :

"Stalin delusion" or "all these martial ideas and sweet dreams about turning the Baltic into an “internal sea” and about the Himalayan passes on the route to the Indian Ocean were completely routed in the summer of 1940".

And they was routed then because

http://www.solonin.org/en/book_june-23-m-day

Btw, i think Solonin said that German attack was delayed by that Balkan problem, and that prouved to be fatal for German offensive

About the Red Army, Solonin said

On other words, Stalin planed a huge invasion for summer of 1942, kinda delusional however in its sizes and presumed accomplishments.
He prepared for that from technical point of view, as industry, weapons and numbers of troops.
However to use what some Nazis generals said (quoted somewhere in a previous post) the red army was a headless colossus with clay feet. It was huge, but it didnt had the morale and organization (tactics and training especially) for such a war.

To not be understand i say that Nazis was some flawless army, they had too their drawbacks and do their fair share of mistakes and have their own interior inherent weaknesses.

Is just that the idea of Stalin that he would be able to conquer the world, or at least Europe, was clearly not realistic, and his plans was in part delusional or "sweet dreams", he didnt realized the weaknesses the USSR and Red Army had and based his plans mostly on who have the bigger number of tanks or troops, a conception which was show by the way soviet generals used their troops most of the time.
Like throwing masses of infantry and tanks and artilery in an attempt to flood and overhelm the enemy, and using human waves attacks regardless of human lives costs, saw as expendable cannon fodder, and believed to be some slave/robot like beings scared and brainwashed by Soviet propaganda reinforced by NKVD actions.

Except that doesnt worked like that, and Stalin was saved after all by the fact that Soviet Union was part of a coallition (who helped a lot through Land Lease and fights on other fronts) and had a huge space behind where was able to retreat and keep safe some of industrial base or weapon stockpiles. And ofcourse Nazis wasnt flawless either and made their own mistakes or have their own problems and weaknesses

This post has been edited by udar on July 14, 2012 08:27 am

I still don't get how someone can't figure the difference between the Himalayan and Carpathian mountains.

To you paratroopers should be dropped in the flat plains so they can be charged by regular infantry, tanks and artillery.

If you haven't heard so far, paratroopers are special units that rely on surprise as a force multiplier factor. You don't drop a paratroop brigade in the middle of Baragan and say, let's charge an infantry division.
You drop them in key tactical and strategic locations : bridges, forts, crosses, canals, airfields, railway junctions. There they can destroy the objectives and/or keep them for short periods of time until they are reconnected with the main forces.

You don't drop paratroopers on mountain peaks. They don't have to jump on vertical cliffs like James Bond. That's only your imagination. There are plenty of valleys and flat pastures all around the Carpathians to drop/air land with gliders a few battalions of elite paratroopers.
The damage they could do to the communications network, supply links, retreat paths is obvious.

As in Crete which terrain is every bit if not worse than in the Carpathians. I dare you to find any plains in Crete. What's worse : any resemblance of flat lands is full of rocks, as the Germans found out to their despair in 1941. 300+ transport planes and a few hundred gliders destroyed. It didn't stop them to take the island.

Why not ? Probably, they could reach air supremacy on the Romanian front in 2-3 days.

As always, a tiny amount of information is a dangerous thing.

FYI, right in the centre of Eastern Europe, eastern Poland, Biellorussia, Northern Ukraine there's something called : Polesia or the Pripyat/Pinsk marshes. This swampy land cuts the Eastern Front into 2 sectors.

The northern sector faced Eastern Prussia with its fortifications and the northern plains with large rivers as it bordered the Baltic Sea.
The Southern sector consisted of Galitia , around Lvov, and in front of it was Cracow and further west Silesia.

The russian staff had to decide where it will make the main effort. From the start, the southern part was preferred because there were no fortifications ahead, the rivers weren't wide and it allowed the Red Army to quickly gain operational freedom by striking north and using the Vistula as a right flank thus trapping Prussia and any German units in the northern sector. The second advantage was that from Cracow, the Red Army could strike South and cut Germany from its southern allies and the Romanian oil.

The January 1941 games tested both scenarios. The end result was the southern version was the correct decision. As early as August 1940, the operational plan put the main effort south of the swamps.

As a sidenote, this meant, the bulk of the Red Army was south of the marshes. The bulk of the German army ( 3 Panzer Groups ) was north of the marshes since this was the direct way to Moscow : Brest-Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow. The decision to attack in the south had turned into a serious flop : as the northern units were routed, the Red Army had to reembark armies from the south and transport them by railway to the north. At the same time, units which were being transported to Lvov were diverted north. You could have part of an army already in Western Ukraine while the rest was redirected North in Biellorussia.
This caused complete chaos as the Red Army had to change under fire the deployment of its main forces.

And what was the most powerfull army in the world doing in Bassarabia ? Avoiding the Carpathians, Danube Delta and the FNG line ? Quite the contrary. It was task to overcome those obstacles and proceed towards the Balkans. One of their aims was the straits, Bosphorus and Dardanelles.

What were the difficulties ? What prolonged war ? The main axis forces were in central and Northern Moldova. Once the front was penetrated, there was nothing behind. Having operational freedom, they would have conquered Muntenia in a few weeks at most.

Stalin's goal wasn't to take a city. His goal was to sovietize Europe and increase the number of republics in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The action was taking place in Galitia, around Lvov. It wasn't about the Dniester and Basarabia.

Sometimes I wonder who actually won the war. Did the Wehrmacht conquered Moscow or did the Red Army conquer Berlin.

How was Stalin saved by a coalition and fights on other fronts when he won a clear victory in the defense of Moscow ? Lend lease and other fronts started to get serious only in 1943. But already at that moment, we have Stalingrad, Kursk, etc. The fate of the war was decided.

And , btw, the thing you don't mention, is that the coalition was decided and the strategic materials started to flow to the Soviet Union before the German attack. That's mastery in diplomacy : the capitalist countries help you liberate Europe. Of course, Stalin didn't tell them he isn't planning on ever leaving Europe again.

To conclude, Stalin, with a tiny part of the power gathered in 1941 ended the war in Berlin. But by your logic, he couldn't get to Berlin with that power intact. This is beyond my comprehension.

This post has been edited by PaulC on July 15, 2012 04:38 pm

If information I gathered (translated by google translator) is correct then there is no chance to speak about a soviet invasion in july 1941! From the table shown below:
http://ilpilot.narod.ru/vvs_tsifra/gl_3/3.118.html the state of soviet long-range air combat aircraft was very poor in mid june 1941... I know Suvorov's theory about the deliberate abandonment of bomber aircraft by the soviet leadership in favor of assault aircraft, but the latter condition you already seen from here http://www.rkka.ru/i22.htm
From my point of view (as a non-connaisseur, I am sure Radub can tell better!) I do not believe that Soviet aircraft was preparing for an imminent large scale attack of the type described by Suvorov, in July-August 1941!

And that would happen if the Soviets attack too. Which would influence their advance in Romania.

This terrible 9th Army present in Bessarabia is the same army about it's 18th Mech Corps we already spoke about... it was undoubtedly NOT the most powerful of this army, the 2nd Mech Corps was, but even about this I read f.i. that his KV-1 were received by mistake, they were intended for the 4th Mech Corps if I remember well...
The idea is that the 9th Army so powerful as it was did not demonstrate too much after 2nd july 1941 when the German-Romanian armies launched the offensive in Bassarabia...I repeat that at the time her organization was complete, losses suffered were low and his opponent was the same that he was to crush according the Burian plan!

Because I hope we cleared the problem of the offensive capability of the 18th Mech Corps, let's talk about the main threat, the 2nd Mech Corps: on 2nd july 1941 it's Tank Division, the 16th, led a strong counterattack (the book I read speak only about T-26 tanks) against the german 54th Army Corps...
The offensive conducted by the 16th Tank Division started asynchronously and disorganized. The enemy, learning on time about the approach of Soviet armored forces, organized a strong antitank defense, met the advancing forces with strong artillery fire and air strikes. Burning tanks, armored vehicles, in fruitless attacks killed many soldiers, but failed to break through enemy defenses. In addition, by the end of the day, the troops keenly felt the lack of ammunition, fuel, for which many of the remaining machines had to be send in the repair works, located 150 km to the east bank of the Dniester. 25 T-26 tanks were lost in battle, many others were sent behind the front lines for repairs.
PaulC tell me please why do you start from the assumption that the alleged soviet offensive would be a surprise to german-romanian troops in july 1941? Because in any reasonable scenario the german-romanian troops who are preparing at their turn of attack would necessarily collect information about their ennemy troops disposal, strength, movements...

This post has been edited by ANDREAS on July 15, 2012 08:48 pm

The 9th army was conducting a fighting retreat not to be surrounded by the 1st Panzer Group which was advancing rapidly in the north trying to trap the Lvov grouping. ( which they did because Stavka ordered the Lvov Grouping to attack even if they weren't ready for this )

First of all, about the 18th mech corp, I don't think you've answered my post regarding the equipment difference. You've posted figures about reliability ( can you back those 70-30 % ? ) and that they had mostly BT2, BT5 tanks, not BT7. Compared to what we had, the BT2/5 were better, in range, weaponry and speed.

As for the counterattack against the German 54th corp, losing 25 T26 tanks isn't what I would call a major attack. Secondly, the 2nd mech corp had 2 tank and 1 motorized division. Where were the rest of the forces ?

Thirdly, about information, you are right, it was clear to the Germans the Russians were about to strike. However this doesn't change the situation : the Germans positioned themselves not to repel a Russian attack, but in the best place to launch their own attack.

What does long range aviation to do with imminent large scale attack ? What strategic aviation did Germany had ? What planes were comparable to the DB3 ?

Somehow, the total lack of strategic aviation didn't stop the Germans to deliver large scale attacks that conquered Europe. Why do we have a double standard ?

Secondly, how was the situation very poor when availability was at 75% ? The Luftwaffe was always at 50-60% and this didn't stop them to be effective.

Thirdly, the Soviet long range aviation didn't sit idle : they bombed Berlin, Konigsberg, Helsinki, Ploiesti,etc.

And that would happen if the Soviets attack too. Which would influence their advance in Romania.

How would that happen ? The forces were already there, their deployment having started in may 1941.

So, dear forum members, no feedback on the operational plans ? Shouldn't we talk about the elephant in the room ?

In Crete as well as at the Hague, German paratroopers dropped near airfields, in order to bring in infantry and heavy equipment on these airfields. Is there any airfield near mountain passes in Carpathians?

In Normandy and Market-Garden paratroopers were dropped several kilometers away from the bridges, which were to be reached within hours after landing. The drop zones were difficult to locate even if the landscape is flat.

You cannot land gliders on sloped terrain even if there are no trees. Even if they would have found a large flat area somewhere 2-10 km away of a pass, to reach it in mountainous terrain would have taken more than a couple of hours. The element of surprise would have been lost.

no, you seem to think that soviet pareatroopers are like James Bond like soldiers. I ask again, where they would be droped so to conquer those mountain passes and maintain them open for red army tanks and mechanized troops? Or how those soviet troops would block them for our troops to pass all over there?
I am glad to see you moved from "paratrooper divisions" to "few battalions of elite paratroopers" however, is a bit more realistic.
And no, a mountain pass is not a single fort like Eben Emael, and facing a Mountain Hunters brigade/division there is an entire different thing then facing for one day a garrison unit taken by surprise and trapped inside a fort

Landing lots of gliders (as delivering few battalions) on mountain valleys is still James Bond Hollywood fantasy like action (dont you wonder why nobody, never do such actions?).
The only significant paratroopers launching of soviet army, even done on flat areas, ended in a disaster. Even if was done somewhere in USSR, so they know the area and have support from local partisan units as well.
They wasnt able to regroup in large enough groups to pose any significant threat for german units or commmunication and logistic lines.

Now imagine them launched in an unknown area, with no support from local population, no heavy weapons, scattered all over the forests and mountains and facing superior enemy troops, better equiped and much better trained for actions in that mountain enviroment.

Yes, and they would be able to reach "air supremacy" (so more then just "air superiority") because why? How that they wasnt able to reach even air superiority over Bessarabia or Odessa at least, as then was facing same enemies?
Not to mention they had their own AA defense then, here would have to fight against our AA defence.

The most powerfull acording to Rezun maybe. An army who didnt prouved it was like that when faced Romanian and German armies crossing the Prut river.
An army who didnt had after all a such huge numerical superiority in tanks, and was equipped mostly with tanks on par with what we had back then
And i dont think i need to mention again what Stavka thought about the amount of time needed to cross over Romania in 1944, you know, those six months (officially, in reality was probably more)?
And they thought that after they gain more experience, meaning waked up from those "sweet dreams" as Solonin name them. And after was much better equipped then in 1941

see above

Hungary is a city? And yes, that might be his original goal, but reality was obviously different

So then, who was those "westerners" who forced a crossing over Dniester and was to be meet by encircling maneuvres?

You talk as it was just a war betwen bolshevik USSR and nazi Germany.
I posted somewhere on another topic a statistic with soviet and german armoured vechicles (including tanks ofcourse) production and losses.

Acording to that, in a one on one fight (allies involvement not included) germans (or axis) would destroy soviet tanks at a faster rate then the soviets produce them.
And a soviet surprise attack in 1941 would more then probably lead to Germany not declaring war to USA and Japan focusing at least at the begining on a new war in Mongolia and Siberia.

This mean USA would not enter the war, at least not when they entered (so not much of Lend Lease), and USSR facing a war on two fronts (exactly what Stalin was affraid of).

Stalin plan, according to Solonin, was to attack in 1942, after Germany, saw as the agresor, would had exhausted its forces fighting in west against (supposedly back then) the most powerful army in the world, the French one, and its ally, UK (having back then the supposedly strongest navy in the world).

After all European countries will slaughter eachother Stalin's red army would have an easy walk occupying the ruined countries there.
Problem was that Germany finished very quickly France (with UK running back over the Channel and unable to put any serious resistance on continent).
So Hitler was able to switch and focus on east, way before Stalin thought possible, in fact i think the entire development of war in west took Stalin and his gang by surprise.
Thats why Stalin ordered a hasty hurry up of the plan of war, as the red army was caught in the middle of preparations and he knew Hitler come after him (the silly "lebensraum" stuff in east was presented since many years in Hitler's Mein Kampf i think).
Not to mention that even if Red Army was kinda prepared from technical point of view, as having enough weapons and war material, from human point of view, as training, morale and organization they was obviously not up to the task.

This post has been edited by udar on July 16, 2012 09:20 am

So, to summarise this wall of text:
1) Russia made a plan of attack
2) They proceeded with the said plan of attack but they came across a natural obstacle
3) They promptly decided to change the plan and went around the natural obstacle

All of the above makes sense.

Would they to the same in the case of other natural obstacles, such as a... I don't know... a mountain range?

Radu

There are airfields at Vatra Dornei, Miercurea Ciuc, Tusnad, etc. The point is simple : there are numerous area where you can drop a brigade of paratroopers either by jumping or with gliders.

And who will stop them ? The local police ? The Romanian units were gathering 200-300km away in Botosani and Iasi.

The Red Army had 5 corps, each equivalent of a division. One was directed against us and consisted of 3 brigades.

What romanian mountain troops were at Vatra Dornei or Bicaz ?

FYI, they were with the 3rd army at Suceava and Botosani. In case of a soviet attack, the 12th army , with 2 mountain corps would attack 4 romanian brigades. Of course, the same brigades would engage the paratroopers in the fight for the passes. They would be in 2 places, a few hundred km apart at the same time. Immobile mountain units.
Did I understood you correctly ?

The Germans did it in Crete. I suggest you read any book about Crete since its obvious you are not informed regarding what was going on there.

That's because they few transport planes and they dropped over mechanized units.
The mighty US army did the same thing at Arnhem. Yet, they were routed just the same.

We have an interesting parallel :
- US paratroopers achieve success in surprise landing in Normandy
- US/Soviet paratroopers fail once the enemy is actively engaged ( dropping paratroopers over tank divisions seems to be a general bad idea )

Unknown area ? Superior enemy troops ? Better equipped ? Much better trained ? Can you prove any single of those claims ? To me, it's pretty clear you do not have an overview of what the soviets concentrated against Romania. I'll quote Suvorov's chapter from the Icebreaker dealing with mountain divisions. ( sorry for the Romanian, simply too much text to translate )

Because they were planning to destroy the Romanian and German aviation units by a surprise attack on the airfields. Soviet reconnaisance planes were crossing our borders very often starting with February 1941. They were mapping and preparing target selection.

Even after the surprise attack of the Romanian and German units destroyed several hundred soviet planes on the airfields, we didn't enjoy air superiority on the southern front. We were constantly intercepted and had quite a number of losses in air battles with the VVS. They simply had far more planes and could afford to lose them. Our airforce couldn't so they reduced air activity starting with August.

At Odessa , the Romanian Air Force was so weak that the crippled VVS had air superiority. That's probably something you didn't knew. What's more, Antonescu was claiming the 4th army inability to take Odessa was due to lacking air cover and asking time and time again for Luftwaffe units. That says everything about how capable the Romanian Air force was.

Istoria politica si militara a razboiului Romaniei contra Rusiei Sovietice, g-ral Platon Chirnoaga.


So the Romanian Air Force with some german units couldn't challenge the crippled VVS over Odessa.

Let's reverse the situation : the full VVS attacks on July 6th at 3 30am the romanian airfields in Moldova and around Bucharest/Ploiesti. Half the RoAF is destroyed on the ground. Some planes take off and they rapidly bring down dozens of untrained for aerial combat soviet pilots.
But the VVS keeps coming. Forcing the RoAF to fight, they would have quickly disabled the Romanian aviation which didn't had were to run. If they retreated in Oltenia, they couldn't provide any ground support.

So based on RoAF combat performance in the East, the soviets would have quickly gained air supremacy. Thousands of SU2, I16 would have jumped on retreating Romanian and German columns.

The story is simple : the RoAF was no match for the VVS in this area of the front. Even with the VVS crippled by the heavy losses of June 22, it still retained air superiority and sometimes air supremacy over the front.

How different ? He sovietized half of Europe.

So then, who was those "westerners" who forced a crossing over Dniester and was to be meet by encircling maneuvres?

Pavlov's southeastern front, Kuznetsov southern front. The action was taking place in Western Ucraine and Bukovina.

Your statistic is meaningless because 20 000 soviet tanks plus the main tank building factories were lost in 1941. Had the Soviet Union attacked first, they wouldn't have produced only 100.000 tanks during the war, but several times more.
Secondly, without the Romanian oil there would be no Panzer divisions but tank-less infantry. Tanks do not consume hay and wood unfortunately. The soviets massed a staggering force to cut Romania from Germany.

How do you know what Stalin was afraid off ? He just defeated the Japanese severely at Khalkin-Gol. What would the Japanese do ? Attack the Soviet Union in Siberia ? With what ?

Stalin didn't plan the attack in 1942. The decision for 1941 was taken before Germany invaded Poland. On august 19, 1939 by declaring mobilization, he was forced to use the extra millions of people before September 1941.
Where is Solonin saying 1942?

Kinda prepared ? It had more weapons than the rest of the world combined several times.
From the human POV, the Germans quickly respected the soviet troops. You can see it from their memoirs. The middle command was relatively weak with notable exceptions. The high command was relatively good. The key people who planned 1941, finished with the Victory parade in 1945. They didn't get dumb in 1941. But few people are interesting why they all had a collective blackout in summer 1941.

This post has been edited by PaulC on July 16, 2012 07:55 pm