Suvorov books, ww-2

In majority of his books Suvorov claims: URSS WAS PLANING A INVASION IN 1941, the spearhead of the invasion would be aimed at the romanian oil.
In 1941 the romanian army faced the 9th soviet army and the 18th army, were this armys enough for invasion?
if not what aditional forces could the russians deploy? the 12 Army ? or second echelon forces ?

The Soviet 9th Army was of Army Group size and was part of a combined arms teams directed at invading Romania.

On 21 June 1941, the 9th Army had 17 divisions in all, including two air, four tank, two motorized, two cavalry and seven rifle. It was very similar to other heavy shock armies, but it was planned to add to the 9th Army yet another mechanized corps, the 24th, commanded by Major-General I. E. Petrov. This corps was established in the Turkestan Military District, and was secretly transferred westwards before its formation had been fully completed. After it had been included, the Army's complement consisted of 20 divisions, including six tank. At full strength, the seven corps of the 9th Army had 3,341 tanks. This was roughly the same number as the Wehrmacht had; in quality, they were superior. According to Colonel-General P. Belov (at that time he was a major-general, commander of the 2nd Cavalry Corps of the 9th Army), it was intended to give T-34 tanks even to the cavalry of this army. (VIZH, 1959, No. u, p. 66)
The 9th Army had so far had undistinguished commanders. Then everything changed. The 9th Army was given a colonel-general as its commander. It was an exceptionally high rank at the time. There were only eight colonel-generals in the whole of the armed forces of the Soviet Union, while the tank troops had none, the air arms had none, and the NKVD had none. Thirty Soviet armies were led by major-generals and lieutenant generals. The 9th Army was the only exception. In addition, some very bright generals and officers had joined this exceptional army, including three future marshals of the Soviet Union, R. Ya Malinovsky, M. V. Zakharov, and N. I. Krylov; A. Poryshkin, a future air marshal and three times Hero of the Soviet Union; and I. E. Petrov, I. G. Pavlovsky, P. N. Lashchenko, all future full generals of the Army. Many other talented and aggressive commanders, who had already distinguished themselves in battle, joined, including the 28-year-old Air Major-General A. Osipnenko. There is no escaping the impression that somebody's solicitous hand was selecting everything which was best and most promising for this unusual army.
Here we come to a small but significant discovery. The most powerful army in the world was set up in the Soviet Union in the first half of June 1941. It was not set up on the German frontier, but on the border of Romania. After its first disappearance, the 9th Army had suddenly turned up in June 1940 on the Romanian
frontier. By this stage, it had already assumed its new capacity as a real shock army. It was soon to participate in the 'liberation' of Bessarabia; Soviet sources indicate that 'the 9th Army was created specially to solve this important problem'. (VIZH, 1972, No. 10, p. 83)
The training of the army had been accomplished by the most aggressive of Soviet commanders, K. K. Rokossovsky, who by then had been released from prison. The 9th Army became part of the Southern Front as the key lead army, playing the same role as the 7th Army had done in Finland. The Front was under Zhukov's personal command.
After the brief 'liberation campaign', the 9th Army disappeared again. Then, under cover of the TASS report of 13 June 1941, it turned up again in the same place. By now, though, it was no longer simply a shock invasion army. It had become a heavy shock army, and was on the way to becoming the most powerful army in the world. Its purpose can hardly have been defensive, for there were very few troops on the Romanian side of the frontier. Even if there had been, no aggressor would have delivered his main strike through Romania, for the most elementary geographical reasons. Another 'liberation campaign' by the 9th Army into Romania,
however, could have changed the entire strategic balance in Europe and in the world. Romania was Germany's basic source of oil. A strike at Romania would ground all Germany's aircraft, and bring all its tanks, machines, ships, industry and transport to a halt.
That is why the most promising commanders were to be found there. The 9th Army suddenly appeared on the Romanian frontier in the middle of June 1941. But this suddenness was only for the benefit of outside observers; in fact, the 9th Army had never left the area since 'liberating' Bessarabia in the middle of 1940. It was simply that its name had not been used officially for some time, and orders had gone directly to the corps from the headquarters of the Military District. The headquarters of the 9th Army and the headquarters of the Odessa Military District (established in October 1939) simply merged into one entity and then equally simply separated again on 13 June.
Experience shows that, after a shock army appears on the borders of a small country, an order to 'liberate' the neighbor's territory is sure to follow within the month. Irrespective of how events might have unfolded had Soviet troops invaded Germany (which incidentally was just as unprepared for defense as the Soviet Union was), the outcome of the war could have been decided far from the main battlefields. Stalin was clearly counting on this. That was why the 9th Army was the strongest. That was why, as early as March 1941, at a time when the 9th Army officially still did not exist, there arrived there a youngish, highly audacious major general named Radion Yakovlevich Malinovsky. This was the same Malinovsky who four years later was to astonish the world with the tremendous strike he delivered across hills and wilderness into the vast heartland of Manchuria.
In 1941 the task facing Malinovsky and his colleagues in the 9th Army was a fairly simple one. They were faced with a distance of only 180 kilometers to traverse, as opposed to 810 kilometers in Manchuria; not across hills and wilderness, but across a plain with really good roads. The attack had to be made, not against the Japanese Army, but against the considerably weaker Romanian one. What is more, it was planned to give the 9th Army three times more tanks than the 6th Guards Tank Army would have in 1945.
Hitler allowed none of this to happen. A German government statement handed over to the Soviet government on the outbreak of war in the East gives the reasons for Germany's action. One of these reasons was that Soviet troops were being concentrated unjustifiably on the frontier with Romania, and that this represented a mortal danger for Germany. None of this has been invented by Goebbels's propaganda. The 9th (heavy shock) Army had been established exclusively as an offensive army. According to evidence from Colonel-General P. Belov, the 9th Army usually 'regarded every defensive problem as short-term, even after German operations had begun on Soviet territory'. (VIZH, 1959, No. n, p. 65) But then this was the trouble with not just the 9th Army, but with all the other armies as well.
Three times Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of the Air Force A. I. Pokryshkin (then a senior lieutenant and deputy commander of a fighter squadron belonging to the 9th Army) sheds an interesting light on the 9th Army's mood. Here is his conversation with a 'filthy bourgeois', whose shop had been confiscated by his 'liberators'. The scene takes place in the spring of 1941, in 'liberated' Bessarabia: 'Ah, Bucharest! You should see what a fine city it is.' 'I'll certainly see it sometime,' I answered with conviction. The shop-owner opened his eyes wide, waiting for me to go on. I had to change the subject. (A. I. Pokryshkin: Nebo voiny, Novosibirsk ZSKI, 1968, p. 10)
Taken From Viktor Suvorov's excellent and well researched book, Icebreaker

This is right. However, when reading more of Suvorov, one cannot help noticing there are some "logical faults" from point to point, the same kind of "lies" he accuses the SU historians to be guilty of. In conclusion, Suvorov's books are very interesting, they try (and in some respects do) to overthrow some of the myths of SU in WW2, BUT they are not to be taken literally, not to be trusted 100%! Let's not forget he was a spy...

Amused, Hitler himself told to his closest collaborators that Soviet Union missed a rare opportunity to deliver a mortal blow to Germany in 1940. In his words, with only 60 divisions the Soviets will be able to conquer Romania in 1940, thus depriving Germany of the Romanian oil.

I am assuming that the opportunity Hitler mentioned was in the weeks when Germany was busy with France and Great Britain on the Western Front.

It would seem so, but Suvorov says - he is very plausible, IMO - that Hitler hadn't finished his job yet (to set Europe on fire, that is) and he had to expect a little more. An interesting scenario would have been to attack Hitler during the Seelowe (which fortunately never happened), when all the airforce and his best divisions would have been blocked in France and in England. Plus the fact the Soviets didn't have a reason as yet (not that they'd care about that, anyway).
I think Suvorov's thesis (the "red line" in all his books) is somehow plausible and he has quite some data supporting his theories; in another way, one has to be very careful when following the logic of his affirmations, because it is a well-known fact that "the best way to make one believe a lie is to present it between two truths so evident that no one would dare to contest them".I don't know who said that, but it's very appropriate to Suvorov's books! Should we not forget the fact that he was a spy and now, as a "refugee", he doesn't have any source of income other than writing; so, his writing must continue to be shocking, to make people buy them. (I guess)

Several post concerning Operation Seelowe have been moved here:
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=5102

This thread was supposed to be about Vladimir Rezun (oh, sorry, Victor Suvorov he tells himself after fleeing USSR) and his writings. Seelowe appeared only as a debate prop in here. Let's get back to him...

This post has been edited by MMM on August 06, 2011 07:39 am

Maybe the writtigs of Suvorov can be true. His real name is Vladimir Rezun, and his nickname, Suvorov, was quite inapropiate, because Suvorov was one of the greatest Russian generals before ww2 (he and Skobelev). Suvorov, the real one, Conte de Ramnic, after the battle of Ramnic, in Romania, said, about the same time like general Bulow, from Austria, the same words.
"I'll leave to Romanians just their eyes, so they can cry".
It is a sentence, and a fact.

Hey, I've found out about an opponent to Suvorov/Rezun. His name is Gabriel Gorodetsky. Has anyone read his theories?

You know, he has many opponents, each one with a small part of his theories.
I'm not read about this Gorodetsky, but I'm interested. Any info or links?

I believe it was Kutuzov who reportedly said that, not Suvorov. See Kiritescu's book on WW1.

Possible.
I remember that maybe Austrian general Bucov said something like that, too.

[The Soviet 24th mechanised corps was at 60 % strength in june 1941 it was commanded by Gen.-Major V.I. Chistyakov HQ Proskurov- Ucraine.
It had the grand total of 222 tanks (~ as much as Romania had in 1941 ).

Major-General I. E. Petrov commanded the soviet 27th corps hq Mary- Turkestan it had 356 tanks ( Bt and t-26 ).

@contras: no links, just read about him in some anti-Suvorov books. That was the reason I asked in the first place...
@152: where do you get these figures? Why would I believe you and not Suvorov/Rezun?
Finally, one "single" question: if Stalin wouldn't have decided to attack Hitler, why did he mass all those forces he had next to the fronteers - in a definitely offensive manner?

Hallo everybody,
For anyone interested in the real strength of the Red Army in the period 1940 -1941, a very detailed and well documented internet site, based (as someone from Moldova Republic told me) on the Soviet military archives. The only little problem is that it is only in Russian... So if you know russian, you are lucky... The link is http://mechcorps.rkka.ru/files/mechcorps/index.htm
From comparing data from Suvorov-s books and the one taken from this site I found (at least for the soviet mechanised units and their equipment) no difference. I think the essence of the dispute (Suvorov - anti-Suvorov) lies in the interpretation of Soviet military leadership intentions in summer 1941, for about technical and numerical force of the Soviet army, that does not leave room for interpretations... at least compared to the Romanian Army! Some of the Suvorov theories were taken (after verification) very seriously by our historians as Florin CONSTANTINIU, Ilie SCHIPOR - Trecerea Nistrului (1941) : O decizie controversată, Editura Albatros, Bucureşti, 1995. I speak here about the possibility of a Soviet Army attack in summer 1941 against Romania, possibility recognized (with some reserves) even by some high ranked soviet military, and proved with captured documents.