Suvorov books, ww-2

That is the reason why we discuss here, to find the thruth.

That is the reason why we discuss here, to find the thruth.

The historic truth is but a myth, a chimaera...
The closest thing could be attained after carefully consulting Soviet archives - both military and of the Communist Party's - from the 1939-1941 period!

I really don't know if any independent expert had acces to those archives, until now.

For the more inspired than me, please give me a logical explanation to the above text : what military industry in the world creates a weapon system -in our case a piece of artillery- and after testing, put it into production, and, one year later of this event, stop the production with no major defects found? The official explanation was : in the current war started after june 1941 this weapon was no longer useful to the soviet army! Interesting, isn't it? Well how didn't they figure that out before june 1941? Were they idiots? All of them? The engineers, the technicians, the generals, Stalin and the Politburo members, and all the others?

There are many reasons military projects are canceled, depending on context. In this case we can assume that the resources involved in production of this weapon were redirected for the immediate war effort. 107mm was a non standardized caliber for Soviet artillery, and building ammunition for this caliber alone was a waste of resources. Also your excerpt does not state the reason the production ceased. Perhaps the machine tools required for producing this gun could not be moved in the interior, once the industries in the west became threatened.

I've read several books written by Glantz. I've even corresponded with him on several topics.

My personal opinion is that his works are not the "last word" on the subject, they are not unbiased, as they are too pro-Soviet. This is somehow understandable, as if he wrote anything that is not according to the current official Russian ideology (which is quite pro-Soviet), his unique access to ex-Soviet archives would immediately be cut, thus he would lose the principal source of his future works - a move he can hardly afford. Therefore, even if he found proofs that are contrary to the official version, he is not in the possibility to publish them - now. Perhaps, when he will eventually decided to finish with visits Moscow, he may - just may - write a final book, where all these non-conform topics will be included. Let's hope this will be the case one day.

Personally, I would rather look for the works of a new generation of Russian historians, who have the guts - and possibilities - to look at the events from a fresh perspective.
Just to mention one name I know of: M.I. Meltiukhov. Unfortunately for me, I cannot read Russian, but from the English translations of some of his writings I found support to what I believe had actually happened in the German-Soviet conflict: it was neither an unprovoked, sudden attack of the Germans (the current mainstream idea), nor a pre-emptive strike by a clever Hitler (theory á la Suvorov), but rather a parallel build-up for a total war of two totalitarian regimes trying to annihilate the other by the meaning of force, while on the façade they were trying to convince the other that there is in fact an alliance between them, which can be trusted. It just happened that the Germans stroke first in June 1941. Had this not happen, the Soviets would have attacked Germany anyhow, it was just the matter of time.

You may read a more detailed analysis of this topic in the lengthy introduction to the first volume of my book, 'From Barbarossa to Odessa', published by Ian Allan Publ. (UK), in 2007. A shorter version of that Introduction has been published on this site, too.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 21, 2010 08:30 pm

I agree with your point, Denes. Sooner or later, Stalin would attack.

Indeed Denes,
Interesting point of view and a credible one, from my perspective. I read something alike in this area - Ernst Nolte's -European Civil War 1917-1945- National Socialism and Bolshevism.

Yes and no, Dragos.
The gun entered production at the No. 352 Plant in Novocherkassk and at the No. 172 Plant in the Ural at Perm. But the explanation given was that the German attack in 1941 led to a situation in which the Soviet Union had neither the requirement for a weapon like the M-60 gun, nor the industrial capacity for its production.
But the reasons offered were close to what you said:
* a shortage of powerful artillery tractors meant divisional artillery would have difficulty in transporting the heavy gun;
* No immediate need for a heavy gun with good anti-tank performance was felt;
* The gun was complicated in production and demanding in maintenance;
* Finally, in the extreme circumstances of 1941, the Soviet Union did not have any spare industrial capacity for the M-60 gun.
At the same time we can not exclude that the gun was designed for missions different from those that appeared after the German invasion. And this last one may be a factor, among others mentioned above.

Glantz's sources are generally based on the Russian Federation's military archives, as well as the writings of different other authors that did their research in these archives. We are talking about actual documents which can at least be verified. Rezun provides no such thing, just supposedly what he has seen.

Glantz provides a solid thesis on the poor state of the RKKA in the summer of 1941, based on numbers and arguments. Instead of opening the mind to the information provided, you dismiss it as a part of a Soviet conspiracy theory. It's your choice, but for me there isn't any point in continuing such an unproductive discussion.

The Red Army was in the process of expanding its forces, a process which had started in the late 30s and which was not going very well for many reasons.

The purges had effectively crippled the Red Army, by eliminating a large number of experienced commanders. Thus, while new units were being created, many of the older ones lost their officers. The officer schools output was not enough to cope with this large demand. Out of sheer necessity the situation of people with little or limited command experience reaching high command positions was common. Even in this situation, there were still many unoccupied positions, especially in the unit staff (these were positions that required a higher decree of education). As I already mentioned, the 16th Mechanized Corps, often mentioned in this thread, did not even have intelligence officers.

Similarly to the shortages of officers were shortages of qualified specialists and of NCOs and also of equipment. For example, there were not even enough cooks and field kitchens in the June 1941. All the tanks had been concentrated in the newly formed mechanized corps, of which none was on full strength even on paper. The actual serviceable machines were, as I showed, fewer. Thus there were no tanks left to equip the rifle divisions with one tank company. Also the Soviet mechanized corps lacked sufficient engineer units, repair crews, fuel trucks, tractors etc.

The Soviet Command was in the process of bringing up to nominal strength some 99 rifle division (IIRC) in the European part of Russia, but at the moment of the Axis attack only around 20 were actually ready. Judging by the average strength of the rifle divisions on 22 June 1941, which in Romania's area was of around 8,400 men for the Odessa Military District and 8,700 men for the Kiev Military District, the Soviets were far from being fully ready for a supposed full-scale attack.

There were too many problems for a full-scale attack on 6 or 7 July, as Rezun claims. My personal opinion is that in 1942, with a more organized and better equipped army, Stalin could have attacked, but in the summer of 1941 he must had been utterly stupid to do this.

Regarding your question on the difference of forces in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940 and in 1941, I will have to see the list of units that took part in the 1940 occupation in order to make a comparison. However, keep in mind that the situations in 1940 and the one in 1941 are very much different, because of the 11th German Army and Fliegerkorps present in Romania, the reorganized and up-gunned Romanian Army and the lack of threats on the Western and Southern border.

From 1940 to 1941, Zhukov had been promoted following the replacement of Voroshilov with Timoshenko at the helm of the Soviet armed forces. He was now working at the Stavka, not the Kiev Military District.

Glantz does not deny that the Soviets were building up their forces. In Stumbling Colossus he goes into depth with the expansion of the Red Army prior to the war. The idea is that the Soviets were not ready for a full-scale attack in July 1941, as Rezun claims. 1942 is a possibility (in my opinion a very plausible one), but it is not the issue here.

Let's take the whole 16th Mechanized Corps, not just these two divisions: 26,920 men and 482 tanks. Add to these the 3 mountain rifle divisions and you get 53,640. The tanks, as I already mentioned, were not all serviceable. According to Stumbling Colossus, on average 29% of the older models were in need of capital repairs and 44% required maintenance. There were also other problems like lack of sufficient numbers of fuel trucks, repair crews, tractors able to tow damaged tanks from the battlefield, lack of intelligence officers (specifically at the 16th Mechanized Corps). These seriously reduce the offensive potential of the mechanized corps and the depth of their advance. Even in late 1942, during Operation Uranus, Soviet tank and mechanized corps lost a large proportion of their machines, probably mostly to brake downs, in the deep plunge behind enemy lines. For Uranus they were well prepared and equipped and with some experience. In the summer of 1941, they were not well equipped, prepared or experienced to conduct such operations successfully.

The Romanian Mountain Corps, which was on the defense in the area had around 63,000 men, many of whom were qualitatively superior to what the Soviets were throwing at them. The terrain is rugged, thus perfectly suited for the mountain troops, with the exception of the Siret Valley, which is not that difficult to be barred against the few forces the Soviets had at their disposal.

Also, by early July 1941, the 1st Armored Division would be deployed relatively close to the area (this is what actually happened historically) and could intervene if the Soviets would manage to break through.

But, please explain why you consider the 1st, 2nd and 4th Mountain Brigades, the 7th Infantry Division and 8th Cavalry Brigade to be ill-equipped compared with the opposing Soviet forces.

There is a thing I do not copy.
In 1939, Soviet army gave a lesson to Japanese at Halhin Gol (Jukov).
In winter 1940, a huge army entered Finland, with many losses, but acomplish their mission.
In summer 1940, military districts Kiev and Odessa are under alarm, Jukov take comand of new formed Southern Front, just in case Romania will opose resistance to Soviet ultimatum. Aprox. 40 Soviet divisions were on Dniestr. (It will be interesting if you have OOB in June 1940).
And, one year later, sudenly, this army was in bad shape, inferior to all aspects, it lacks everything, tanks were allready crippled, officers corp affected by purges (BTW, in 1939-1940, the same army was not affected by purges, which were in 1936-1938?).

The purges continued beyond 1938 as well.

Regarding the actions you mentioned, why do you think they demonstrate the Red Army was strong? The geeral impression they left, especially on the German command was that tthe Red Army had some very important shortcommings.

Let's take them one by one.

In the Far East, due to the distance to Moscow and the skirmishes with Japan, the purges were implemented among the last. Nevetheless, in 1938, in the fighting at Lake Khasan, the Soviets managed to repulse the Japanese incursion using the classic frontal-attacks. The losses according to Krivosheev were:
-KIA: 717
-MIA: 75
-Died in hospital: 197
-WIA: 2752
-Sick: 527
On the other side the Japanese lost 526 KIA and around 900 WIA. Not a stellar performance.

At Khalin Ghol, in 1939, Zhukov could prepare the attack by concentrating enough forces and materials to overwhelm the Japanese 23rd Infantry Division. However we are talking about a force less than 60,000 men, nothing spectecular. Despite enjoying a large superiority in armored vehicles and having air support, the losses, according to Krivosheev, were:
-KIA: 6831
-MIA: 1143
-Died in hospital: 957
-WIA: 15251
-Sick: 701
The Japanese losses claimed by the Soviet forces are around 60,000, but in reality were probably much smaller (Japanese sources rate them at around 20,000 KIA, MIA and WIA).

In September 1939, the Red Army mobilized two fronts in order to occupy Eastern Poland. The 1 million men taken from the factories seriously disrupted the economy. Yet this operation, although it was supposed to be a walk in the park (striking the rear of the Polish Army, already almost broken by the Wehrmacht) proved not to be so easy. 996 KIA and 2002 WIA in skirmishes with the Polish Army. The level of prepairness was not that high and many of the mobilized units had not yet reached the Polish frontier when the mobile corps crossed it. There were a lot of logistical problems, especially regarding fuel. For example, the 6th Cavalry Corps had to sip the gas out of a third of its trucks in order to allow the other two thirds to continue the race to the frontier agreed with the Germans.

All of the above were not very relevant in showing the Red Army in action, but the Winter War with Finland showed its limitations. It was an utter humiliation for the Soviet Union. The initial assaults were a total fiasco and resulted in huge casualties due to the poor tactics, training and equipment shortages the troops had.

After the replacement of Voroshilov with Timoshenko (and the purging of some of the commanders) things changed abit: fresh troops were mobilized, equiment and munitions were stockpiled, the assaults on the fortifications were rehearsed. By overwhelming pressure, the Finnish were forced to pull-back and eventually ask for an armistice (they were also running out of ammunitions). The cost, according to Krivosheev:
-KIA: 71214
-MIA: 39369
-Died in hospital: 16292
-WIA: 188671
-Sick: 58370
-Frost bites: 17867
Like I said a humiliation, not a show of force.

For Bessarabia, in June 1940, the Red Army again temporarily mobilized a front for the opertion, like in the case of Poland or in the second part of the Winter War. Since there were no real military operations, with the exception of several skirmishes, there is no way to actually evaluate the performance.

In June 1941, the Red Army was not mobilized. It was in a slow process of building up its forces, but not mobilized. This is why the rifle divisions averaged at around 8,000 - 9,000 men and there were many shortages of equipment. When expanding the armed forces from 1.5 million in 1938 to 5 million in June 1941, all the new units that are formed have a core taken from an existing one. It takes time to provide the new division with all the neccesary equiment and to train the officers and NCOs to command it. It is easier to mobilize a smaller force, because one can shuffle equipment and soldiers around to make up for the shortages, but when dealing with the entire Army it is obviously more difficult. It's logical.

That would make them mountain divisions not brigades.

On 15 March 1942, the mountain brigades were renamed mountain divisions. No major organizational change occured. Just the name. They were already almost as large as a division (especially since 1942, the Romanian infantry division shrank to 7 battalions).

For the exact strength of the mountain brigades in 1941, you can check:
Dutu A., Dobre F., Loghin L. Armata Romana in al doilea razboi mondial (1941-1945) - Dictionar Enciclopedic, Editura Enciclopedica, 1999

Edit:
1st Mountain Brigade on 22 June 1941 had 383 officers, 319 NCOs, 11,628 soldiers.
2nd Mounatin Brigade finished the 1941 campaign with 404 officers, 293 NCOs and 10,487 soldiers. It lost 74 officers, 44 NCOs and 1,808 soldiers. If you add them up you will surpass 12,000.
I have no data on the 4th Mountain Brigade, but it was very likely at similar strength.