Fighting on the eastern front: WWII

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Ok, let's begin with the invading armies in Barbarossa. First of all, the German troops entered operation Barbarossa with 3500 tanks, whereas the Soviets had approx. 20,000. As well as tank superiority though, let's take at the numerical advantage.


July 1941, though, amounted to a little more than 5 million men, which was more than the German land forces deployed for Barbarossa.

The German army mobilized 3.2 million men for the operation. The soviets? 5 million.


The number of artillery pieces and aircraft was also heavily in the Soviets' favor

Again, an other important fact. The Soviets had more artillery as well as aircraft. But before we go any further into the operation on the ground during fighting, let's look at a little insight of the brilliance of the German commanders in WWII. First of all we have Adolf Hitler, a brutal man, but a clever man none the less. By leading Stalin into a false sense of security he prepares for war with his grand army. Is that all? Of course not...the Germans have much more up their sleave. Reinhard Hydrich also had a way to trick Stalin into killing his own generals.


He is believed to be the creator of the forged documents of Russian correspondence with the German high command. While it is now known that the Stalin's Great Purge of the Soviet military officer corps was at most tangentially related to this forgeries...

Now that we have seen a bit of the prerequisites the Germans had for the operation we can dive back into the military aspect of the war in the east.

Operation Barbarossa started on June 22, 1941 and lasted until December of the same year, but there is a smaller operation (or battle) in this period called the battle of Bialystok - Minsk. As this part of the operation commenses, key targets are taken out by German air campaigns allowing the German ninth and fourth armies to cross the border. General Pavlov assembled his army and within two days were in the game. They counter attacked the Germans with the 6th, 11th Mechanized and 6th Cavalry Corps.


This attack failed with heavy losses, although it may have allowed some units to escape the western encirclement towards Minsk. In the evening of 25 June, the German XXXXVII. Panzerkorps cut between Slonim and Volkovysk, forcing Pavlov to order the withdrawal of all troops in the salient behind the Shchara River at Slonim to avoid encirclement

As you can see. The first counter attack is repulsed. A second counter-attack by the 20th Mechanized and 4th Airborne Corps fail as well and by June 30th the pocket was completely closed. In it, the German forces surround and eventually destroy the Soviet 3rd, 10th, 13th and portions of the 4th Soviet Armies. The remainder of the Soviet 4th Army fell back eastwards towards the Berezina River. In a matter of 17 days the Soviets lose 420,000 men. Let's jump ahead here to save some time.

The battle of Leningrad, is not the most famous battles, but deffinetly the most famous seige. By December the German army had advanced 600 km to Leningrad and 800 km to Moscow. In Leningrad there wasn't much to tell. The Germans did a good job of basically starving the city into submission. They refused to assault the massivly fortified city, but instead stood waiting outside the gates of Leningrad. They started on September 8th of 1941 and was not taken down until January of 1944 with operation Spark.

In Moscow it was a different story. About an even number of troops from both sides fought in this battle. The lead German Panzer Groupe was about 19 miles from Moscow. At this time fresh Siberian troops ready for winter war were transfered to the front. The Soviet winter had given the Germans a terrible time and the added stress of troops equipped and trained for harsh weather fighting were there. Even with this sort of pressure the Germans hold firm. They hold the line for a long time despite large numbers of men dieing from cold as well as food ration problems. Approx. 248,000 German soldiers die during the battle of Moscow. Many from the elements NOT the Soviet soldiers. The Soviets however, are not so lucky. With the support of good resources as well as winter clothing they are for the most part protected from the winter, but still manage to lose 650,000 - 1.28Million troops. A staggering number compared to a demoralized German army.

By August 21, 1942, the German army had completed there efforts for the "pincer" movement they had been so diligently working for. The German forces start with the Luftwaffe bombing the city to rubble. By the end of August the German troops had taken over the Volga north of Stalingrad.


The life expectancy of a newly-arrived Soviet private in the city dropped to less than twenty-four hours.

After November 19th, the Soviets counter attacked, but it was not the valient Germans they defeated. It was instead, the weak south flank held by the Romanians. The Soviets led attacks on all sides of the German 6th army (as well as parts of the 4th Panzer army).

The Soviets had completely encircled the 6th army, as well as many of the Axis death toll numbers come from Hungrian, Romanian and other countries rather than German, shows more of the German strength. Moreover, the casualties STILL do not add up. Even when encircled and lacking much needed supplies the axis casualties hold up at around 740,000 killed, while the Russians, with many advantages manage to again lose 750,000 + soldiers. Take into consideration only 400,000 of the axis casualties were German.

One more thread of long exhausting research like the snipers thread :2thumbsup:

Have fun!

[Csargo]

Is this just for your fun Alexander? Or are we supposed to argue with you. If you would like I have no problem with that :P But other than that very good post.

[Reverend Joe]

What you don't really take into account is that the Soviets 1) started the war with crap machinery and 2) used a lot of mass assault tactics, because they relied so heavily on levies.

And you may point out the staggering losses, but you do not point out the important factor, in the long run: it worked. Ghastly and bloody as hell, but it worked. The Russians could afford to lost many times as many conscripts as the Elite german armies, who had one hell of a time training new soldiers up to the crack level they had once had.

[Strike For The South]

THE GERMANS WERE NOT SUPER SOLDIERS. As for the Russikes high losses they can be to attributed to the fact they were commies and to the fact that all commies suck enso facto Russikes suck. Besides America won WW2 single handedly with no help. If you disagree you are a commie and as mentioned in said post you SUCK!

[BalkanTourist]

I am sorry, I have to say this, but I had a lot more respect for you, SFTS. That's a very childish post.

[cegorach]

[QUOTE] First of all we have Adolf Hitler, a brutal man, but a clever man none the less. By leading Stalin into a false sense of security he prepares for war with his grand army.

Not really clever. If he was clever he should have prepared the army for winter - it is IMPOSSIBLE to win before winter in Russia - only ythe armies which were prepared ( Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles) were visctorious, others died.



Of course not...the Germans have much more up their sleave. Reinhard Hydrich also had a way to trick Stalin into killing his own generals.

It is a joke ? A myth, Stalin got rid of enemies using Hydrich as a perfect excuse, besides these men were hardly brilliant. Stalin needed fanatically loyal men so he killed those with too much ambition.




After November 19th, the Soviets counter attacked, but it was not the valient Germans they defeated. It was instead, the weak south flank held by the Romanians. The Soviets led attacks on all sides of the German 6th army (as well as parts of the 4th Panzer army).

Yes, Germans never lose ! Actually they should have use better protection if they thought that there will be a counterattack - in other words - they sucked ! It was German idea to keep Romanians here and they payed the price when the badly armed allies were overrun.


Even when encircled and lacking much needed supplies the axis casualties hold up at around 740,000 killed, while the Russians, with many advantages manage to again lose 750,000 + soldiers. Take into consideration only 400,000 of the axis casualties were German.

So ? The Russians ALWAYs were losing more soldiers than their enemies - perhaps only during the war with Turkey in 1878 it was different, but the truth is simple THEY NEVER CARED. The difference would have to be massive to make them ask for peace just like in the wars with Poland in 1578-82 or in 1918-20. The Germans were unable to achieve that so they lost.

Regards Cegorach:book:

[Gurkhal]

Yes, Germans never lose ! Actually they should have use better protection if they thought that there will be a counterattack - in other words - they sucked ! It was German idea to keep Romanians here and they payed the price when the badly armed allies were overrun.


If they thought there would be a counter-attack, then the flank protection would be better. But the Germans belived the Russians to have exhausted themselves over the last two years, something which seemed rather realistic at the time if you ask me. And since then a Sovjet counter-attack would seem unlikly it would make sense to keep the low-quality troops at a place where fighting in any greater degree wasn't likly to happen and from where high-quality troops could then be taken from simple guard duties and put where they were needed.

Once the offensive came the Germans and their allies were simply to supprised to be able to respond quickly enough and powerful enough. Hitler's well known confidence in that fixed defences could withstand anything also made what it could to make the disaster greater.

In my opinion the Germans didn't really do anything wrong, it was the Sovjets who did things right.

[Keba]

And the high losses were that sole bit of luck for the West. Despite the numerical superiority, by the time the Red Army reached Germany, both sides were running out of men. The situation also saw the transition of the Red Army to smaller numbers and better equipment, to make up for the lack of manpower.

IIRC, casualties for the Soviets amounted, overall, to some 20,000,000 people, some 8,000,000 soldiers. This number does not take into account the wounded and maimed that could not continue waging war.

The Soviets had high losses because that is the way Russians waged war. It was like that before the Soviet Union, and it was like that in WWII. One might say that they conformed to the rule that soldiers should fear their own officers more than the enemy.

Hitler's greatest miscalculation was the attack on Yugoslavia and Greece. That cost him months. Second was the insistence on concentrating Panzers on the north part of the front, a terrain which did not suit them. Third was the order for the Panzer divisions to halt a few hundred kilometers from Moscow so the infantry could catch up ... which gave time for the defenders to prepare.

Now, for all those mistakes, the Germans would have won if they faced any other army. The Soviets were fully willing to send their men to die so they could accomplish the objective (in the battle of Stalingrad, a division was sent out against the Germans to buy time for the rest of the defenders, the officers knew full well it was a suicide mission, the soldiers did too, and yet they went in, and suffered 99% losses). If they faced any other army, especially those of the Western Allies, they would have won, simple as that.

[Kraxis]

IIRC, casualties for the Soviets amounted, overall, to some 20,000,000 people, some 8,000,000 soldiers. This number does not take into account the wounded and maimed that could not continue waging war.
You recall correctly, if not rightly... Yes I know it is odd.

These figures are what Krushev let out. A sort of "look how bad we suffered". But these last 15 years it has been calculated that the Russian losses amounted to perhaps as much as a couple million past 30 million. With almost half being military.

In Georgia, Stalin's homeland, 95% of the male population in fighting capacity was killed, and since it wasn't really occupied for long, this has to have been due to Stalin himself ("what did you call my moustache? Boys take him out and shoot him") and military action. Pretty steep I would say.

In any case the Russians won it. Germany always lacked those last few divisions they had bottled up in France, Africa, Norway, Yugoslavia ect ect. Some have estimated that five infantry divisions would have been enough to take Moscow, completely surround Leningrad and hold the line during the winter offensives. Small margin... Whether you beleive it is up to yourself, this can't really be proven.

[Keba]

The main problem with counting casualties is the chaos of the first years. The dead were not properly logged during the retreat. Add to that the attempts to form a milita to fight, the losses are likely to be much higher than the official 8,668,400 soldiers. Some authors place it as high as 26,400,000 dead soldiers, although most find that number unrealistic, and estimates are around 16,000,000 soldiers dead total during the war.

The other problem is the casualties of civilian populations which, due to the fact that they often include the dead soldiers, range widely, from 17,000,000 (Sokolov) to as high as 40,000,000 (Kozlov, although this number includes the dead from other causes as well (frostbite and starvation to name two), as well as potential demographic growth loss due to casualties)).

Nevertheless, the numbers of killed are staggering. Not to even begin counting the injured, wounded who might have died later (medical casualties alone are 18,000,000, 15,000,000 of which are wounds or psychiatric disablement). And those figures are solely for the Soviets.

The Soviet Union bore the brunt of World War II, and it is, like mentioned alredy, doubtful that any other nation in the world would have continued waging war following such losses ... they also prevented a third world war from being started following the second one, Soviet losses were simply too high for the war to continue (by the siege of Berlin, Soviet troops weren't all that different in composition from the German units, a lot of young boys and old men, very few actual soldiers).

[Kraxis]

It might not hav been clear, but my figures were totals.

Total casualties should indeed include non-violent and accidental deaths. That means starvation, cold (what about the many soldiers that died in the Winter War for instance?), accidents in production of warmateriel (when the increase of warproduction is significant it must be assumed that those that died in explosions for isntance would not have happened in peacetime), and a host of other reasons.

Demographic losses cannot be used in this case, however it can be used to broadly tell how many people the country could have had if the war hadn't happened.

[Randarkmaan]

Hmm... makes me remember something I once read...
It said that the Soviet war effort in World War II could be summed up in one word: sacrifice...
Pretty true actually.

Also, one thing that I believe the Russians learned during WWII is that in a REAL war you won't necessary have the time to train the soldiers how to clean their weapons to prevent them jamming, which can be evidenced in the simple, yet effective Soviet weapons requiring minimal maintenance.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Is this just for your fun Alexander? Or are we supposed to argue with you. If you would like I have no problem with that :P But other than that very good post.

I just wanted to spark new discussion, which it seems to have done. And yes, this was just for my 'fun' I guess...I'm such a nerd! :2thumbsup:

[Alexanderofmacedon]

[QUOTE=Alexanderofmacedon]



Not really clever. If he was clever he should have prepared the army for winter - it is IMPOSSIBLE to win before winter in Russia - only ythe armies which were prepared ( Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles) were visctorious, others died.




It is a joke ? A myth, Stalin got rid of enemies using Hydrich as a perfect excuse, besides these men were hardly brilliant. Stalin needed fanatically loyal men so he killed those with too much ambition.





Yes, Germans never lose ! Actually they should have use better protection if they thought that there will be a counterattack - in other words - they sucked ! It was German idea to keep Romanians here and they payed the price when the badly armed allies were overrun.



So ? The Russians ALWAYs were losing more soldiers than their enemies - perhaps only during the war with Turkey in 1878 it was different, but the truth is simple THEY NEVER CARED. The difference would have to be massive to make them ask for peace just like in the wars with Poland in 1578-82 or in 1918-20. The Germans were unable to achieve that so they lost.

Regards Cegorach:book:

I would expect this from a Pole! Excellent post.

[Strike For The South]

I am sorry, I have to say this, but I had a lot more respect for you, SFTS. That's a very childish post.
Ahh that may be but I know AOM in real life and his German supersoldiers get tiresome. Yes the Germans were better in nearly everyway but the Russians had #s cliamate and they were fighting for there very survuvial. I doubt the Germans couldve have ever taken the Russian bear down excluding an equal strong japeneese force coming in from Sibera. Even then the Russian bear is a very formidable foe.

[Keba]

Victory was possible ... in fact, victory only ceased to be possible following Operation Citadel, the battle of Kursk. At that point, the Germans finally went on the defensive, however, prior to that, they had the chance. In fact, had it not been for Hitler's intention to rip Yugoslavia apart and aid Italy in Greece, he would have had that extra month that the Germans needed. As it turned out, the Eastern Front was one series of bungles following a series of bungles. It was like that on both sides, except that Stalin learned to listen to his officers ... Hitler never did.

The German's weren't supersoldiers. However, on their side they had discpline, training, equipment and skilled officers. The Russians had numbers, numbers, numbers, ruthless but efficient soldiers, weather, weather and will.

Now, the Russians could have won a lot earlier, too. The battle for Moscow was their second chance (the first was the defensive line abandoned following the conquest of Poland) ... had Stalin not ordered an attack across the front, the Soviets could have punched through German lines and driven them a fair way back, threatning Army Groups North and South's flanks.

[Gurkhal]

I don't think that the Russians could've forced the Germans back more than temporary in winter 41 and spring 42. The Germans were far to strong and the Russians to unskilled in mobile offensive warfare to encircle the Germans and be able to hold them inside for a longer time. That do not exclude the possibility that with a more limited offensive the Sovjets could have taken some key areas and jammed the German summer offensive a fair bit as well as having more forces left to fight said German offensive.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Ah..the great debate resurfaces once more.

Could the Germans have defeated Soviet Russia?

Good sources for the argument:

Hitler's Panzers East: World War II Reinterpreted, by Russell H.S. Stolfi. University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Hardcover. 280 pages. Photographs. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

-- argues that the Wermacht had the tools and Hitler had the will, but that Hitler did not have the nerve to follow through properly with a Blitz.

Slaughterhouse: Handbook of the Eastern Front, by David Glantz, et. al. Aberjona Press.

-- a more conventional view, but emphasizing the many operations that have not received the publicity of major actions such as those at Lenigrad and Stalingrad. Some interesting things on Soviet defeats in '42 and '43 as their new mechanized forces learned their trade.

[ChewieTobbacca]

I think what most people CAN agree on is that had Germany unleashed this attack on any other country in the world, it's highly unlikely that country could have came out victorious.

All the more annoying when I hear the uneducated say that the U.S. is almost entirely why WW2 was won...

[Keba]

The Allied commanders were less bold for a very simple reason. Western democracies cared about casualty lists in combat, the Russians didn't. The western allies attempted to minimize casualites on their side, which made them appear somewhat indecisive.

The Soviets simply didn't care ... there was a quote of Zhukov's (I think, it could have been Konev, though): 'If my infantry runs into a mine-field, I want them to march over it like it wasn't there.' Hardly an attitued a western commander would have had.

And that attitude won the war.

Interesting tidbit ... the USA provided trucks for what would become the famed Katyusha. The words USA were stenciled on the truck above the white star. The Soviets repainted the star red, but the letters remained (they didn't have that much time), so the common agreeance among the soldiers was that the letters stood for: to kill that son-of-a-bitch Adolf.

[Pannonian]

The Allied commanders were less bold for a very simple reason. Western democracies cared about casualty lists in combat, the Russians didn't. The western allies attempted to minimize casualites on their side, which made them appear somewhat indecisive.

The Soviets simply didn't care ... there was a quote of Zhukov's (I think, it could have been Konev, though): 'If my infantry runs into a mine-field, I want them to march over it like it wasn't there.' Hardly an attitued a western commander would have had.

And that attitude won the war.

The rationale was that the principal purpose of a minefield is not to destroy a unit, but to pin it down so that supporting artillery can blanket them with fire. Walking through a minefield as if it didn't exist was therefore actually the best way of minimising casualties. IIRC British paratroopers in the Falklands took the same view, ignoring the relatively minor problem of the minefield to get to the major problem of the Argentine troops defending the position.

[Mount Suribachi]

The Allied commanders were less bold for a very simple reason. Western democracies cared about casualty lists in combat, the Russians didn't. The western allies attempted to minimize casualites on their side, which made them appear somewhat indecisive.



Also, the allies just weren't as populous as Russia. By 1944 the British were disbanding regiments in order to keep other units at full strength, Canada was letting prisoners out of jail to fill the ranks etc. Only America had anything like the numbers of men Russia had and they had 3 things draining their manpower that Russia didn't. An enormous Air Force. An enormous Navy. And a war on either side of the globe.

And given the low life expectancy of green soldiers in the US Army due to their abominable replacements system, their GIs didn't fare much better than their Soviet counterparts.

[Randarkmaan]

And given the low life expectancy of green soldiers in the US Army due to their abominable replacements system, their GIs didn't fare much better than their Soviet counterparts.

Hmm... I haven't heard much about this "abominable replacement system" before, would you be keen to tell me about it? Because I'm actually pretty interesting in getting to know (no sarcasm).

[Kraxis]

I haven't heard that as well, but I will try to explain what it could be.

The US doctrine was centered on Tail rather than Teeth. Meaning the best went to the rear, while the infantry got what the other had left over (sorry if this offends someone, but that was how it was, and the other services couldn't take ALL the best anyway). So technically the infantry wasn't really that great (oddly enough the worst seems to have been the mechanized infantry, also called Gypsies for their tendency to collect stuff and bring it along on their transports), and the Tail was huge!
There is a truth in the American saying: "Behind every fighting man are 20 other men." That is literal, if a bit more than the truth.

So actually the US forces generally lacked infantrymen, while on paper they were ready for combat. That meant as soon as losses were taken, they hit harder than either the German or British suffered. It also meant that the average infantryman would not likely have as good a chance of survival as the British infantryman (though that can also be contributed to the British lack of risking the infantry and using armour instead, while the US used the infantry in the first lines).
The percentagewise losses among fighting troops could very well be very high, if not all that immense in actual numbers.

[Mount Suribachi]

Kraxis hits on part of what I was on about. I believe only 1 in 4 of the US Army in WW2 were "front line", although that number may be skewed by the fact that the Air Force was part of the Army at that time. Also, army recruits got a choice as to which branch of the service they wished to join. This meant that the air force got lots of smart, highly motivated pilots but the army proper lacked good quality officers and the infantry became something of a dumping ground for the worst quality recruits. This problem was further compounded by the rule that exempted 10% of college-eligable draftees from military service (to try and preserve some of the bright young minds)

Again, as Kraxis hints at, US Army doctrine differed from say, British Army doctrine. The sizes and force compositions of both armies reflected this. A British infantry Brigade might have 3 Battalions. 2 would be on the front line, the 3rd would be in reserve/refitting/recuperating and after several days would replace one of the other 2 battalions. The US Army on the other hand kept their units on the front line and they rarely got a rest. If they took heavy casualties, they wouldn't be pulled back and refitted, they would be sent a batch of replacements and kept on the line. The only way out was to be killed or wounded.

And herein lies the problem. Replacements were taken from a giant pool known as Replacement Depots (the infamous and hated "repple depples"), and apportioned as requested by unit commanders at the front. They were just sent to reinforce units to fill gaps. These green young soldiers were naturally not welcomed by the veterans at the front and little attempt was made to integrate them into their squads/platoons and they usually were dead/wounded very quickly. I read one GI saying that if you survived 5 days you were considered a veteran.

The replacement pools were also filled out by wounded soldiers returning to duty. And they were treated just like the soldiers fresh out of training - assigned without a care or a thought to which unit they had belonged to before they were wounded.

And this goes to the heart of the problem. When it all comes down to it, men don't fight for King or Country, they fight for their mates either side of them. Except, when you're thrown in with a bunch of strangers who don't know you or trust you, that motivation that makes you fight disappears.

It also contrasts again with the British regimental system. Men in a unit were generally all from the same area. They trained together. When they were wounded, they were returned to their old unit when they recovered. The Germans also did the latter, the only American units that followed this practise were specialised units like the Airborne or Rangers.

What this policy ultimately meant was the US Infantry divisions often lacked cohesion and continuity, resulting in higher casualties than maybe they should. Between D-Day and VE-Day four US Inf divisions suffered over 200% casualties. Several others approached that.

Stephen Ambrose goes into this in some detail in Band of Brothers and especially Citizen Soldiers

[Randarkmaan]

Hmm... Interesting...
Anyway, in theory how many men could the US have fielded during World War II if they tried to draft as many as would be... managable?

Which also makes me wonder:
How was this in the Soviet army? Just wondering... And btw didn't the Soviets use quite a lot of ad hoc units?

[Keba]

The Soviets generally tended to throw their best into the fray. Guard divisions were generally considered the best, and they recieved the essentially treatment as the rest. The best were those that survived.

The Soviets used ad hoc units for the simple reason that they suffered extremely high losses ... survivors were merged into units that were more along the lines of full units (that is not to say that they were full, by the end of the war all Soviet divisions were esentially half-strength, although heavily mechanized).

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Let me tell you something pretty funny. I'm in a club (yes I'm VERY much a military history nerd) at school called Young Tacticians. Anyway, we had 12 people and we played a paintball match against Young Independents, who have about 80 people. It was to work on squad tactics and we seemed to be the Germans as the 80 other people kept charging us until we completely obliterated them only losing 3 guys. It was pretty badass if you ask me. Of course like 8 of our guys are totally uncordinated in every way, but oh well, we carried their weight for them...

[Redleg]

Hmm... Interesting...
Anyway, in theory how many men could the US have fielded during World War II if they tried to draft as many as would be... managable?


The numbers I have seen show appoximately 10 million in uniform at the end of WW2. Given the population base of the United States at the time, it had just begun to tap into the resources of nations manpower to field the military.

Now the population at the time was somewhere between 120 million and 150 million depending on what year you wish to use.

[Randarkmaan]

That makes me remember something that I've been told, which I find quite funny.
There was a NATO excersize in Finnmark a while ago (the 80's) and as in most military excersizes there were 'combat simulations' and such. One of these 'combat simulations' involved a British batallion (or a company, don't quite remember) that was supposed to hold a hill against an attack from the enemy, in this case played by the Norwegian Army. The Norwegian unit chosen was popularily called 'samebattaljonen' ('the sami battalion) and consisted of conscripts from Northern Norway, mostly Finnmark.
Now, instead of using 'traditional tactics', that is to say firing flanking and all that stuff, they just ran right up the hill and just beat the living crap out of the British troops up there. I do think however that they didn't care that they were 'shot' and just carried on nonetheless, but a pretty amusing story anyway.

[Brenus]

Let’s see: 22 of June 1941, the Germans attacked Russia. December 1941, first defeat in front of Moscow. No material came at the time from UK or US 9wich wasn’t at war at the moment, or not for so long). Did the Germans had a chance to win, probably yes, like the French against the Germans in 1940 when the Air reconnaissance did actually spot and took pictures of the Panzers in the Ardennes. The French missed the opportunity, and the Germans did the same. But, could have they done better? Where and when?:balloon2:

The Germans deployed 3,439 tanks (181 Pz1, 106 T35, 746 Pz2, 772 T38, 965 Pz3, 349 Pz4, 230 Panzer 3 Befehlswagen) in 19 Panzer-Divisions, plus Panzerjager and others Sturmgeschutz in autonomous units.
The Soviets had between 20,000 – 21,000 tanks, most of them BT-5 and 7, T-26, T-28 and T-35, with only 27% ready to fight. Evaluation gives around 15,000 tanks of which 967 t-34 and 508 KV-1 and KV2. On the 13,500 old tanks, 3,650 are really ready, which still made a total of 5,000 against 3,500 Germans. :book:
The objective of Barbarossa is to destroy USSR. The plan is simple: To destroy the Soviet Army in the open field. The primary objective is to avoid Napoleon mistake, so to take Moscow wasn’t a priority. To achieve this goal, big Soviet formations would be encircled and destroyed as near as possible from the borders. It was essential to forbid a Russian withdrawal.
3 Army Groups: North with aim to Leningrad
Centre: Ukraine (1st economic area of the Soviets)
South: going for the Oil field.
Barbarossa is based on two phases: Destruction of the Soviets armies in Byelorussia and Ukraine the advance to Leningrad at the North and the Black Sea at the South. Then, the road to Moscow will be open and the town will fall by itself. No offensive against Moscow was planned.
The only problem is nothing, no B-plan if the Red Army sustained the lost.
The surprise worked. Due to first direct order from Stalin NOT to fight, the first Russian Units surrendered, then when finally Stalin realised, the Soviet Doctrine to counter-offensive proved disastrous, especially when prepared by Timochenko without any knowledge of the situation on the field… Paralysed by fear and the souvenir of the purges, Kousnetsov,Pavlov and Kirponos tried to follow orders and were slaughtered. BUT, the 24 of June, the 20th Armoured Division attacked the 13th and 14th Pz-Division and obliged the 2 Germans Divisions to give back terrain.
So from the beginning, it is clear that the Russians won’t gave-up easily, and when attacked by surprise, the Germans effectively killed and captured a lot of soldiers; it became more difficult when the Red Army had time to prepare, as showed in the assault against the fortress of Brest-Litovsk.
The great battles gave superb victories to the Germans (Minsk, Bialystock) BUT the Soviets succeeded to withdraw in good order in the North, to Leningrad even sustaining heavy casualties. Not only the Russians didn’t collapse, but counter-attacked at each opportunity. The lack of coordination between Soviets Units is exploited by the Germans who will reach Leningrad, Minsk and Smolensk in July.
The 10th of July Stalin took command of the STAVSKA and the front is reorganised. Vorochilov took North West Front (Leningrad), the Western Front went to Timochenko and the South-West to Boudienny.
After 14 days of fight, the Germans had all the reasons to be optimistic: 89 of the 164 Soviets divisions are destroyed; the Red Army Air Forces are annihilated
However, the German lost are higher than expected (the 15th of July, Gal Halder indicated that 100,000 men killed, injured or lost) the Pz Divisions had lost 41% of their tanks, by enemy or breaks.
AND the Red Army is NOT destroyed.:sweatdrop:
And finally, the Germans will fail in front of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad.
The Germans had lost from the 22nd of June to the 8th of October 1941, on the Eastern Front 564,727 men (119,464 killed and 24,792 MIA), 17% of the effectives, and 50% of its tanks. The Soviets lost more (according the OKW, 2 500 000 soldiers, 18 000 tanks, 22 000 guns and 14 500 planes, according to the STAVSKA 230,000 killed, 178,000 MIA –POW most of them- 720,000 injured a total of 1 128 000 men, 7 000 tanks, 8 900 guns and 5 316 planes). Nowadays, it is generally admitted that the Russians suffered 5 times the Germans lost.
But the failure of the Blitzkrieg was obvious.:2thumbsup:
In December the Germans will start to loose the initiative and the disaster in front of Moscow will avoided by first, the order of Hitler to keep the line, second the bad weather which will nail on the ground the Russian Stormovick and the snow, so deep than even the T 34 couldn’t manoeuvre.
So could the Germans done better? I doubt. And when, is never. They gambled and lost. Like the Japanese against the US, when the manpower and industrial resources of USSR kicked on, Germany didn’t stand a chance.:no:

[cegorach]

[QUOTE]The Soviets had between 20,000 – 21,000 tanks, most of them BT-5 and 7, T-26, T-28 and T-35, with only 27% ready to fight. Evaluation gives around 15,000 tanks of which 967 t-34 and 508 KV-1 and KV2. On the 13,500 old tanks, 3,650 are really ready, which still made a total of 5,000 against 3,500 Germans. :book:


These 'old tanks' were not older than more than 50 % of Axis tanks - just a note.

In addition there wer 19 000 combat airplanes and about 100 000 cannons (includes mortars, anti-tank and anti-airplane artillery + probably some larger granade launchers and machine guns which sometimes could be not added to this number). Navy had over 200 submarines and there were between 5 and 10 paratrooper corps (various stages of organisation, 5 were ready for sure) - there were severla independent brigades as well.

An offensive army as we see.

Soviet losses seem to be reasonable if we remember about those numbers.:book:

[Rodion Romanovich]

The Soviets didn't have nearly the same mobility for their divisions as the Germans at the outbreak of Operation Barbarossa, even despite advantage in number of tanks and planes. They hadn't developed motorized divisions of the same kind as the German and hadn't practised and planned for a mobility of that type in their military doctrine - something that is worth a thought, it's not only about numbers in equipment. Another important point is that Stalin had sent a lot of the more capable generals to death camps because they weren't communists, replacing them with less able generals. Operation Barbarossa was a shock operation including the element of surprise in the attack, a careful plan for missions for the aircraft and tanks taking advantage of precise intel about the distribution and strength of the Soviet forces. The initial advances were planned according to this accurate intel so that in almost every initial engagement the Germans would engage a smaller, weaker Soviet force isolated from others. The victories won during the first two days were entirely due to shock effect and backstabbing, a luxury not often given to commanders. It wasn't any brilliant achievement other than in perhaps intel, recon, and an ambitiousness in taking advantage of the element surprise rarely seen in other military operations. The more important thing was what came after the initial few days of Barbarossa. There, the Germans did a job that could be considered strategically impressive, but you could also blame it more on the Soviet lack of experience in fighting blitz tactics previously. While the Germans had had practise wars vs Spain, Poland, France and Britain previously, the Soviets had only fought the Polish and had some engagements to the east, but hadn't had any practise similar to the German practise. If you look at the war after Zhukov was brought back from the camps, he quickly reestablished the crumbling Soviet lines in a withdrawal operation that I would consider one of the most impressive military operations of the 20th century warfare.

The first interesting event was when Hitler ordered to reinforce the offensive to the south instead of pushing forward more aggressively towards Moscow. Instead he fell for the temptation of pursuing the rapidly retreating southern flank, crossing the Dnepr, wasting much energy in the river crossing and even more in the following advance, where neither supplies nor Luftwaffe could keep up and provide very good support. In not capturing Leningrad, the Wehrmacht didn't only lose the chances of taking Moscow, but also lost the support from the Finnish troops who had much experience in fighting the Russians and fighting in the difficult terrain to the north. The Finnish troops thus aborted the attempts to capture Murmansk, and as a result this important harbor was kept open during the entire war, allowing allied convoys to supply the Soviets with tanks and weapons. In losing the battle for the northern flank already in 1941 and the reestablishment of the Soviet line, many Germans already saw the war as lost when the first Soviet counter-offensives begun. If you look at some of the commander changes in 1941, you'll see that first one commander requests to be replaced because of "disease". Shortly afterwards a great number of other German commanders resign with similar excuses. You get the impression of a fear of Hitler even among both the ranks and the command, due to the terror of the SS, Gestapo and other institutions. Nobody dared argue against Hitler's decision to redirect the main offensive south even if it was a big mistake, hardly a nice work climate. And in 1941, many rightly believed that German defeat was near. The Soviet early raids on Berlin and the Ploesti oilfields had also been important propaganda victories for the Soviets, with the full result being visible in Germany by the winter 1941, when also the strategical situation for the Wehrmacht got critical.

However then comes the second interesting event of the Eastern front war. The Soviet counter-offensives by Zhukov had nearly encircled and eliminated the northern German panzer spearhead, when Stalin intervened in a way similar to Hitler's intervention during the autumun. Instead of continuing to concentrate the offensives to the north, Stalin ordered offensives along the entire line as a propaganda action similar to how Hitler believed terror and propaganda would be more important than strategy in defeating the enemy. As a result of Stalin's orders, none of the offensives got strong enough to break the German lines, and the northern panzer spearhead survived the winter. While the early offensives seem to have had quite low Soviet casualties while inflicting many German casualties, the following offensives were powerless and gained nothing else than worthless ground for the massive loss of lives and equipment such as tanks for the Soviets. As a result of the offensives, the Germans could soon prepare a spring offensive against a weakened and exhausted Soviet army, and in 1942 pushed on towards the Volga. However because they had given up the war on the northern flank after the defeats in 1941, the rest of the war was thereby without doubt lost, considering that pushing on to the south could only take them to another river line, the Volga, where the Soviet artillery and infantry based armies were extremely effective when used to defend river crossings.

The German spring offensive of 1942 was admittedly well-coordinated and tactically impressive on the way towards the Volga, but again Hitler made a strange intervention, repeatedly ordering one of the key panzer units back and forth along the line and preventing it from taking part in any of the action while the other units took more damage than would otherwise have been necessary. By the time the Germans got close to the Volga, their advance was already slowed down, and it was hardly surprising that they would stand no chance in pushing on much further after crossing the river. The fact that the Soviets chose to strike the Romanian, Italian and Hungarian parts of the axis line in their counter-offensive was hardly surprising, because the auxiliary regiments had arcaic tanks and equipment of much lower quality than the Germans. It's normal military procedure in such a situation to strike the part of the line believed to be weakest. That doesn't mean the line wouldn't have been broken if held by German forces. It's possible that it was even benefitial for the Germans that it wasn't German-held lines that were attacked by the first powerful wave of the Soviet offensive, because if so they would no doubt have been lost just like the auxiliary regiments were. So it can hardly be blamed on the auxiliaries that the line was broken, seeing as the Soviets had amassed an enormous superiority for the counter-offensive and the Germans were already exhausted by the river crossings. After the Volga line and Stalingrad encirclement, Hitler's interference again proved counter-productive, as he prevented any quick counter-operation from being carried out by not allowing the army in Caucasus to give up ground and retreat. If it had retreated quickly, it could possibly have encircled the Soviet pincers over the Volga and challenged the Soviet counter-attack at an earlier stage. Instead, the 3 German key units for a long time fought isolated in 3 different locations without being able to support each other - a crucial mistake when fighting a numerally superior opponent with lower-quality equipment and training (the Soviets were mostly levies). One group was captured in the Stalingrad pocket, another in the Caucasus, and a third near Kharkov. However even if Hitler hadn't intervened, the German defeat would have been certain after the Stalingrad encirclement, seeing as they would then hardly have had the offensive power to launch another offensive over the Volga, which would have resulted in a similar situation to that before the Kursk offensive.

The Kursk offensive was the final interesting event. The Soviets knew the Germans would have to win on the eastern front to have any chance at all of winning the war, even if the allies weren't keeping their promise of opening another front to the west, so a German attack was inevitable. The Soviets did the right thing in just waiting for it, so that they could stop it by defense in depth + switft counter-attacks - the anti-blitz tactic the Soviets had developed and perfected by 1943 - and in the process eliminate much of the German key elite units used for the offensive, to enable a quick Soviet advance in response. When Operation Zitadelle finally came, the Soviets took full advantage of their intel and the low-quality troops they had at their disposal, and managed to win a crucial victory where a large portion of the crucial German tank reserve was wiped out.

In summary I think both the Germans and the Soviets suffered a lot from bad decisions made by their political leaders who knew nothing about warfare. The generals of both sides did a quite good job given the orders they received from above, but I would hardly say the Germans or Soviets were superior to their opponents. I also would say that even if the Germans hadn't received the contra-productive orders from Hitler that were devastating to their forces, they wouldn't have been capable of winning in the long term. Holding the Soviet Union would have been impossible with the war to the west, the blockades and the trade embargoes, even if the British, French and Americans together were a much smaller threat than the Soviet Red Army. It would have been difficult to enforce the surrender and handing over of all Soviet equipment, and easy for Soviet partisans to hide weapons, tanks and other equipment for partisan activities even if Stalin had signed a surrender. That the Germans would have been able to press on past the Urals doesn't seem anywhere near realistic, and if there would have been a Soviet defeat it would only have been temporary. On the other hand if Stalin hadn't intervened in 1941 I don't think the Soviet would have been able to win the war that much faster, perhaps winning by 1943 or 1944 at the earliest.

[Brenus]

“An offensive army as we see”: Yes, it was. The Soviet doctrine was to counter attack at any opportunity, and to be very aggressive. The first task for the Red Army was first to learn to fend, then they succeeded to over-come the best trained German crews… When the tactic known as the shield and the sword (Kursk) was implemented, it gave them victory and they took the initiative. The German will never got it back.

[Pontifex Rex]

Victory was possible ... in fact, victory only ceased to be possible following Operation Citadel, the battle of Kursk. At that point, the Germans finally went on the defensive, however, prior to that, they had the chance. In fact, had it not been for Hitler's intention to rip Yugoslavia apart and aid Italy in Greece, he would have had that extra month that the Germans needed. As it turned out, the Eastern Front was one series of bungles following a series of bungles. It was like that on both sides, except that Stalin learned to listen to his officers ... Hitler never did.

Not really true accept in being true to the myth. The spring of 1941 came late and the rains stayed longer than normal. Guderian himself has stated that they could not have attacked sooner since the rivers were still swollen (in particular the Bug) and the ground too soft in Poland and East Prussia for large scale movement of armoured units.


The German's weren't supersoldiers. However, on their side they had discpline, training, equipment and skilled officers. The Russians had numbers, numbers, numbers, ruthless but efficient soldiers, weather, weather and will.

It should also be added that the Red Army was in the process of a series of reforms and that the purges of the army had hurt badly. The learning curve was steep but one can clearly see the improvement in the combat techniques as early as Nov 1941. By late 1942 they are beginning to put into practice the operational doctrine known as "Deep Battle" which would prove to be far superior to blitzkrieg and better than anything developed by the western allies. The weather and Russian numbers are the old excuses of the defeated German officers and offer only a simplistic view of a hugely complex issue.


Now, the Russians could have won a lot earlier, too. The battle for Moscow was their second chance (the first was the defensive line abandoned following the conquest of Poland) ... had Stalin not ordered an attack across the front, the Soviets could have punched through German lines and driven them a fair way back, threatning Army Groups North and South's flanks.

That is debatable. The numbers in front of Moscow were not all that much in favour of the Red Army but the expansion of the effort to a front-wide offensive did weaken the advantages that the Red Army had. In June 1941 the Red Army was simply not properly trained or supplied to take the offensive and by December, while some of the less talented officers were gone the unit commanders were generally two grades above their skill level (battalion commanders commanding brigades or divisons) and thus there was a need for tighter controls. The Red Army would learn and it was in learning that they were able to defeat the Nazis. After all, if it was just numbers the Red Army would have won in 1941.

[Pontifex Rex]

Hitler's Panzers East: World War II Reinterpreted, by Russell H.S. Stolfi. University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Hardcover. 280 pages. Photographs. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

-- argues that the Wermacht had the tools and Hitler had the will, but that Hitler did not have the nerve to follow through properly with a Blitz.

Stolfi is not a good source for examining the events of 1941 or the war in the east. He all but ignores the open Russian archives, uses German sources too heavily, ignores logistical realities and the role they played in the campaign in 1941, and on and on. His work has been roundly criticised as heavily biased and has been taken apart by his peers quite vigorously.


Slaughterhouse: Handbook of the Eastern Front, by David Glantz, et. al. Aberjona Press.

-- a more conventional view, but emphasizing the many operations that have not received the publicity of major actions such as those at Lenigrad and Stalingrad. Some interesting things on Soviet defeats in '42 and '43 as their new mechanized forces learned their trade.

This particular volume by Colonel Glantz is a reference guide and not really meant as a text on the war. I would suggest his "When Titans Clashed", "Before Stalingrad" "Stumbling Colossus" and " Colossus Reborn". I would also think that the work of Glantz is far more controversial in that he does much to undo the "weather and Hitler" excuses of German officers and post-war writers such as Liddel-Hart and others.

Glantz and others have gone a long way towards dispelling the myths left to us by Manstein, Guderian, v Luck, v Mellenthin and others about the war in Russia. Since the opening of the Russian archives in 1990 plus other newer works based on de-classified western and German sources the idea of weather and "Russian hordes" has, rightfully, been put aside.

[Pontifex Rex]

Interesting tidbit ... the USA provided trucks for what would become the famed Katyusha. The words USA were stenciled on the truck above the white star. The Soviets repainted the star red, but the letters remained (they didn't have that much time), so the common agreeance among the soldiers was that the letters stood for: to kill that son-of-a-bitch Adolf.

Sorry Keba but that is simply not true. The Kats were first used in mid-1941 and were based on a Russian chasis. Perhaps some were later used but the majority of the trucks (more robust and with larger cargo capacity) supplied by the US were used to haul troops and supplies. I have not seen any photos of a Katyusha on a US truck chasis. :book: ~:)

[Pontifex Rex]

Ok, let's begin with the invading armies in Barbarossa. First of all, the German troops entered operation Barbarossa with 3500 tanks, whereas the Soviets had approx. 20,000.

Ok, lets ~:) As others have posted this number in closer to the 14,000 mark and of these as many as 2/3 were "off the road" due to maintenance and spare part probalems (varied between units). Further, since most units were not concentrated on June 22, they could not and did not fight as divisions, oftern the ammunition or fuel depots were 100 miles or more from the tank parks, sub units could be even further apart.. The poor maintenace levels have their roots in the five year plans and the emphasis on numbers,...but not spare parts. So,...many tanks, not enough widgets to keep them running.


As well as tank superiority though, let's take at the numerical advantage.The German army mobilized 3.2 million men for the operation. The soviets? 5 million.

Nope. ~D It was 4.4 million Axis troops in the attacking zones (including airforce personnel) versus 2.6 million Soviet army and air force troops in the western military districts. The total of 5.5 million Russian troops was for the entire country. Here are some stats for just the ground troops (in millions):

June 22 - 3.7 Axis vs 2.2 RA
Sept 11 - 4.02 Axis vs 3.46 RA
Nov 1 - 3.5 Axis vs 2.2 RA
Dec 1 - 3.4 Axis vs 4.19 RA

Add in strategic surprise, poor Red Army training, poor equipment, poor supplies and the results are not hard to understand.


Operation Barbarossa started on June 22, 1941 and lasted until December of the same year, but there is a smaller operation (or battle) in this period called the battle of Bialystok - Minsk. As this part of the operation commenses, key targets are taken out by German air campaigns allowing the German ninth and fourth armies to cross the border. General Pavlov assembled his army and within two days were in the game. They counter attacked the Germans with the 6th, 11th Mechanized and 6th Cavalry Corps.

Alex,...please. The Bialostok defences were not taken out by any air attack but by the attacks of 4 German armies possessing strategic surprise, numerical advantage, better tactical and doctrinal method. :book:


The Soviets had completely encircled the 6th army, as well as many of the Axis death toll numbers come from Hungrian, Romanian and other countries rather than German, shows more of the German strength. Moreover, the casualties STILL do not add up. Even when encircled and lacking much needed supplies the axis casualties hold up at around 740,000 killed, while the Russians, with many advantages manage to again lose 750,000 + soldiers. Take into consideration only 400,000 of the axis casualties were German.

Hmmm,...don't build your shrine to Nazi Germany just yet Alex. The axis armies lost some 1.5 million troops between August 1942 and Feb 1943 from five axis armies (German IV Panzer and VI Army, Rumanian III and IV and Italian VIII). Thirty-two divisions and three brigades were destroyed entirely, 16 more divisions were shattered and another 20+ abandoned their heavy equipment and transport. 3500 tanks (7 months production) along with 12,000 guns (6 month production) and over 3000 aircraft (4 months production) were also lost. The Germans and their allies allies lost enough equipment to outfit some 75 divisions by the end of campaign. Soviet losses, both civilian and military, are pegged at about 1.0 - 1.1 million with equipment losses being far less than that of the axis armies.

[Keba]

Not really true accept in being true to the myth. The spring of 1941 came late and the rains stayed longer than normal. Guderian himself has stated that they could not have attacked sooner since the rivers were still swollen (in particular the Bug) and the ground too soft in Poland and East Prussia for large scale movement of armoured units.
It isn't as much that spring came late, it was the Balkans that stalled the Germans. It cost them as much as a month of fighting ... more since the troops had to be moved to the borders with the SU. The weather may have been bad, I don't really remember, however the employement of troops after the beginning of the attack came out wrong ... the panzers were concetrated north, in terrain that didn't suit them, foolish orders for the tanks to wait for the infantry to catch up cost Germany a decisive victory. Now, while Moscow may not have been a vital position ... it's fall would have destroyed Soviet morale, just like Stalingrad would have. The Germans also wanted to strike south, at the oil fields first, but Hitler demanded the attack be concentrated on Moscow. Now, that decision was a mixed blessing, the Soviets were expecting a strike at the oil fields, and had concentrated their forces accordingly, however, in 41, those forces would have been insufficent.


It should also be added that the Red Army was in the process of a series of reforms and that the purges of the army had hurt badly. The learning curve was steep but one can clearly see the improvement in the combat techniques as early as Nov 1941. By late 1942 they are beginning to put into practice the operational doctrine known as "Deep Battle" which would prove to be far superior to blitzkrieg and better than anything developed by the western allies. The weather and Russian numbers are the old excuses of the defeated German officers and offer only a simplistic view of a hugely complex issue.
It was an idea on paper as early as '34, I believe. The reforms were intiated following the Winter War, where the Soviet army showed it's lack of ability. However, in the initial stages of the war, the proponents of static defense were more numerous and powerful, in general. By the time that the concept was actually employed, Stalin had learned to listen to his commanders, something that Hitler never did.


Sorry Keba but that is simply not true. The Kats were first used in mid-1941 and were based on a Russian chasis. Perhaps some were later used but the majority of the trucks (more robust and with larger cargo capacity) supplied by the US were used to haul troops and supplies. I have not seen any photos of a Katyusha on a US truck chasis. :book: ~:)
Dunno, it was in one of the books I read on the subject ... IIRC, the Russians did order a whole lot of trucks from the USA as part of the war effort. The book claimed that they were used for Katyushas, however, I can no longer remember which book it was.

[Pannonian]

It isn't as much that spring came late, it was the Balkans that stalled the Germans. It cost them as much as a month of fighting ... more since the troops had to be moved to the borders with the SU. The weather may have been bad, I don't really remember, however the employement of troops after the beginning of the attack came out wrong ... the panzers were concetrated north, in terrain that didn't suit them, foolish orders for the tanks to wait for the infantry to catch up cost Germany a decisive victory.

Arras is an example of what happens when the panzers disregard their infantry support completely. The Soviets later solved the problem of necessary infantry support by having the accompanying infantry ride on the tanks themselves, something made possible perhaps by the position of the turret.

[Pontifex Rex]

It isn't as much that spring came late, it was the Balkans that stalled the Germans. It cost them as much as a month of fighting ... more since the troops had to be moved to the borders with the SU.

Hmmm,... I do not believe this is so. Back in late 1940 the original date for the invasion was set for May 15 but it was the weather that delayed the invasion not the Balkan attack. The troops that were used for the invasion of Yugoslavia and then Greece in April 1941 were drawn almost exclusively from Army Group South and the OKW reserves and almost all were back in their start positions in time for the June 22 start date. Casualties had been minimal and the troops were ready on the date of the assault.


The weather may have been bad, I don't really remember, however the employement of troops after the beginning of the attack came out wrong ... the panzers were concetrated north, in terrain that didn't suit them, foolish orders for the tanks to wait for the infantry to catch up cost Germany a decisive victory.

Again, one needs to examine what the plan called for, which was the destruction of the Red Army west of the Dnepr River. Truth be told, the Soviet high command believed the UKraine to be the strategic objective and had deployed the bulk of their best formation in the south. However, the Germans were deployed in a manner that put Moscow as a priority, at least initially, and the results do show how effective the three northern panzer groups were.

As for "foolish orders for the tanks to wait for the infantry" I think the records agains show that the tanks alone were not capable of poreventing the Red Army from making its way out of encirclements. The further the Germans pushed east the worse their supply situation became and no sooner had they reach Smolensk than the logistics system all but collapsed. Coupled with serious Red Army counterattacks east of Smolensk Army group centre was forced onto the defensive, forcing a 4 week halt to offensive operations.


Now, while Moscow may not have been a vital position ... it's fall would have destroyed Soviet morale, just like Stalingrad would have. The Germans also wanted to strike south, at the oil fields first, but Hitler demanded the attack be concentrated on Moscow. Now, that decision was a mixed blessing, the Soviets were expecting a strike at the oil fields, and had concentrated their forces accordingly, however, in 41, those forces would have been insufficent.


Actually it was the German generals who wanted to strike for Moscow and it was Hitler who wanted to strike for the Ukraine and the Donbas. The debate that raged in late July and early August was only settled when Hitler gave the following order:



OKW Order 21
The OKHs 18 August considerations regarding the further conduct of operations in the east do not agree with my intentions.
I order:
1. The most important missions before the onset of winter are to seize the Crimea and the industrial and coal regions of the Don, deprive the Russians of the opportunity to obtain oil from the Caucasus and, in the north, to encircle Leningrad and link up with the Finns, rather than capture Moscow.
2....

This is the point were Hitler actually made the correct move but for the wrong reasons. Had the Germans struck eastward in September they would have done so with their railheads further west than they were while the panzer moved further east. The supply system simply would not have allowed it. More importantly, Army Group South would not have been in position to cover the southern flank as it did historically and the troops destroyed in the Kiev pocket would have been available to attack the salient towards Moscow once the poor weather arrived.

Good discussion. ~:)

Cheers.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

My eyes hurt badly! :wall:

[Pontifex Rex]

My eyes hurt badly!

Not sure I understand the comment but might I suggest Visine. ~;)

[Watchman]

I've been given to understand that when Operation Barbarossa was initiated it caught the Soviet brass completely napping. Stalin, a ruthless and unscrupulously calculating pragmatist, simply could not fathom someone would try an invasion that crazy just because. Then again, Hitler believed his own rubbish fervently while Stalin didn't, had some rather inflated ideas about his own and German abilities and somewhat wistfully low regard of Soviet resources and capabilities.

Anyway, what this meant on the front was that not only were the Soviet forces woefully unprepared and poorly positioned, they were actually expressly told to not fire on the Germans - the panicking Stalin figured the Germans were trying to provoke a provocation or something along those lines. Ergo, initially the attacking Germans could destroy Soviet formations virtually at their leisure and Soviet air assets suffered especially badly. Understandably enough not a few troops nonetheless fought back as well as they could and orders be damned, and one senior Soviet officer reputedly later drily observed that what saved Mother Russia during those early dark times was the insubordination and poor discipline of the rank and file...

Personally I suspect if the Soviets had been in readiness and allowed to fight a proper defensive, the Germans wouldn't have gotten too far beyond the Soviet part of Poland or thereabouts. A lot harder to mount a Blitzkrieg if the other guy isn't saddled with some dozen major and absurd handicaps, methinks.

In any case Barbarossa was something of a "it's so crazy it just might work" thing. It sort of failed for about the same reason too. Nazism was a weirdly Nietzschean ideology (Communism, at least in the forms it appeared in the USSR and China, was in some ways rather similar); Hitler for example seems to have been under the delusion that enough will really could overcome any obstacles and conquer all adversity. What this showed in was the crappy logistical planning of the whole endeavor - indeed, making war on something the size and power of the USSR with the resource base of Germany in the first place was by itself something of a sign that Adolf didn't quite comprehend that in modern warfare resources and logistics are the king.

His weird ideological biases were another thing. The Germans could have created an entire class of small landowning peasantry in captured Soviet territory by dismantling the kolhoses and distributing the lands to the populace; the Soviet state wasn't exactly unconditionally liked in the first place, and such newly established private landholders would no doubt have been quite happy to help against their natural enemy the USSR. I've been told some German generals specifically suggested this to Hitler too.

Why the idea got turned down apparently gets interesting. Partly it was the Nazi regard of Slavs as sub-human helots to be afforded no rights; more concretely, however, the Germans immediately needed the sovhoses and kolhoses for the exact same purpose the Soviets had once established them in the first place, namely producing foodstuffs for state use. Around the same time the Germans were also confiscating agricultural produce in occupied France for the war effort (which understandably started pissing off the previously rather indifferent Frenchmen something fierce); in other words, the Reich was not able to feed its armies without pillaging consumables from conquered regions. This doesn't say much about the level of planning or resources the campaign was being waged on; to boot it rather helped to alienate the initially potentially sympathetic East European populace and thus rather help the efforts of assorted partisans and resistance fighters nevermind now to create increasing friction for further German projects.

The ethnic cleansing programs didn't help one bit. The locals were often only too willing to help slaughter Jews and Gypsies (who for assorted socioeconomic reasons were widely loathed in Central and Eastern Europe), and indeed occasionally cheerfully did it themselves before the Germans had even turned up. Nazi mass killings weren't limited to such despised minorities though, and German brutality against Slavs caused resentement. Moreover, all that playing around tied up troops and other resources that would have been better employed at the front. The later decision to enact the notorious Final Solution via designated extermination camps only exerbated the problem - indeed one argument against the whole project in the decision-making circles was specifically that it would tie up massive amounts of logistical, organisational, industrial and transportation capacity sorely needed for the ongoing war effort. Looting the possessions of the victims and the creepy attempts to process the corpses to something useful (soap gets mentioned often) didn't quite make up the difference, and indeed probably further tied up resources that would have been more sensibly spent elsewhere.

I've read some German dissidents in fact tried to get a word of the death camps out to the Allies through embassies and suchlike already quite early on, but they quite simply weren't believed. That's understandable when you think about it. Even the Soviets, kooky paranoid as they were, were operating on relatively rational paradigms; not only was the very idea of the extermination camps too obscene to be fully believed (even for the Soviets), rational thinkers no doubt found it difficult to comprehend a state locked in an all-or-nothing total war really would waste resources for something so insane that afforded absolutely no practical benefits.

Hitler was also toying with harebrained ideas about building long-range transatlantic bombers to strike at New York, and had the major aircraft manufacturers try to procure suitable planes (again pointlessly tying up capacity). :inquisitive: Goes to show how reality-deficient his ideas could be.

[Keba]

What you say is, essentially true. Germans also had the option of recruiting a great number of soldiers against the communists, but Hitler and the brass refused, and those that did join were sent off to other parts of the world, where they had absolutely no reason to fight.


Hitler was also toying with harebrained ideas about building long-range transatlantic bombers to strike at New York, and had the major aircraft manufacturers try to procure suitable planes (again pointlessly tying up capacity). :inquisitive: Goes to show how reality-deficient his ideas could be.

Actually, by the end of the war, schematics were complete for bombers that could do just that ... some also believe that they were meant to drop 'dirty' bombs on U.S. cities. Not so harebrained an idea, but the technology was only developed by the war's end.

[Pannonian]

I've read some German dissidents in fact tried to get a word of the death camps out to the Allies through embassies and suchlike already quite early on, but they quite simply weren't believed. That's understandable when you think about it. Even the Soviets, kooky paranoid as they were, were operating on relatively rational paradigms; not only was the very idea of the extermination camps too obscene to be fully believed (even for the Soviets), rational thinkers no doubt found it difficult to comprehend a state locked in an all-or-nothing total war really would waste resources for something so insane that afforded absolutely no practical benefits.

The Soviets saw prisoners and other undesirables as dispensable resources, but resources nonetheless. Beria investigated the labour camps and actually recommended that rations should be raised to increase their efficiency. Compare with German labour camps where the diet was deliberately fixed at a level below basic survival to encourage "natural wastage". And that's without considering the specialist death camps like Treblinka and Birkenau.

[Sarmatian]

I'm wondering why hitler didn't try to present his attack as war against communism, not russians or slavs. Some soviet battalions (particularly in ukraine and estonia, lithuania...) actually surendered to the germans cause they've seen germans as "liberators", or just not worse than the communists. But after death camps and persecution of slavs, even die hard anti-communists took up arms to defend SU. Stallin was much smarter. He reconciled with russian orthodox church, agreed to stop repressing it and got a powerful ally. When both stallin and patriarch started calling russians to take arms and defend rodina, it had much greater impact on the russians...

[Keba]

IIRC some high-rankers wanted it so, but Hitler and his rather fanatical cronies decided that Russia was to become lebensraum, living space, with Germans living in fortified cities, while the subhuman slavs did the work in the fields, kept completely primitive and uneducated.

The other proposal included the establishment of independent (more-or-less) nations between Germany and the Communist Siberia as a buffer. This plan presented itself as a liberation plan of sorts, employing the locals against the commies.

There were volunteers, a lot of them, in the early stages, but after the Nazis showed their intentions, people actually joined the Soviets in their war. Stalin was simply pragmatic, as the outer lands were lost, the war increasingly became a Russian one, and since the communist forms of motivation failed, he turned to the traditionally strong patriotic feeling of the Russians, presenting it as a Patriotic War.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The Soviets saw prisoners and other undesirables as dispensable resources, but resources nonetheless. Beria investigated the labour camps and actually recommended that rations should be raised to increase their efficiency.

Compelling evidence of their differing attitudes -- after all, Beria was not a noted humanitarian was he?

[Sarmatian]

Yes, but he used deception in the past, and quite succesfully. He didn't even bother to try agains the su. Probably because he realy believed that the "master race" can not possibly lose against a "subhuman race". Myth of the german invincibility was strong at the beggining of the invasion of the soviet union...

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Not sure I understand the comment but might I suggest Visine. ~;)

I'm partially grounded from internet forums and such and when I came I had a lot of reading to catch up to. Gah! :dizzy2:

[Kraxis]

The Soviets later solved the problem of necessary infantry support by having the accompanying infantry ride on the tanks themselves, something made possible perhaps by the position of the turret.
Actually they learned the practice from the Germans in Barbarossa. If you look up the pictures from that campaign you will often see German infantry riding tanks.

But where the German infantry rode for comfort and tactical advantages, the Russians devised the idea to be an entire doctrine for certain shock troops (generally the tank-riders carried only submachineguns). Similarly the Katyusha was taken in as a result of the effectiveness of the Nebelwerfer.
But in both cases the Russians took a good idea and expanded on it. For isntance the German Nebelwerfer was a number of tubes on a small carriage. Pretty simple, but the Russians did like they did with everything else, thought of how to make it faster and simpler. Easy, remove the spin and add fins, and mount it on a truck, just like the masses of AA guns.
Then it was the turn of the Germans to learn, and they did as they always did. How could eh weapon be made better in ALL aspects? Well mounting the rockets on a fully armoured halftrack would make it a lot easier to use (six tubes had been mounted on the sides of an open halftrack with limited success), and a lot better protected. But that was expensive... as usual...

But riding tanks was a specific task for specific infantry. A lot of stories surround these shocktroops, and not all are nice, in fact they were supposedly the worst of the lot.

[Pontifex Rex]

...Anyway, what this meant on the front was that not only were the Soviet forces woefully unprepared and poorly positioned, they were actually expressly told to not fire on the Germans - the panicking Stalin figured the Germans were trying to provoke a provocation or something along those lines. Ergo, initially the attacking Germans could destroy Soviet formations virtually at their leisure and Soviet air assets suffered especially badly. Understandably enough not a few troops nonetheless fought back as well as they could and orders be damned, and one senior Soviet officer reputedly later drily observed that what saved Mother Russia during those early dark times was the insubordination and poor discipline of the rank and file...

Watchman,

I think you may be confusing this with the numerous reconnaissance flights and border provocations that took place along the border throughout the spring of 1941. Stalin's deliberate blindness aside, there were many other subterfuges employed by the Germans that planted false leads and offered "plausible" reasons for the German build up in the east (including the Balkan campaign).

Nonetheless, the warning orders had actually been dispatched from Moscow on the early evening of June 21 but were somewhat convoluted and took time to work their way through the intricate communications system. Below is order NKO Directive No 1 issued by Timoshenko and Zhukov from the Red Army High Command on June 21st:


NKO Directive No 1 "Concerning the Deployment of Forces in Accordance with the Plan for Covering Mobilization and Strategic Concentration."

To: The Military Councils of the Leningrad, Baltic, Western and Kiev Military Districts.
Copy to: The People's Commisar of the Navy.

1. A surprise attack by the Germans on the fronts of the Leningrad, Baltic, Western Special, Kiev Special and Odessa Military Districts is possible during the course of 22-23 June, 1941.
2. The mission of our forces is to avoid provocative actions of any kind, which might produce major complications. At the same time, the Leningrad, Baltic, Western Special, Kiev Special and Odessa Military Districts' forces are to be at full combat readiness to meet a surprise blow by the Germans or their allies.
3. I order:
a) Secretly man firing positions of the fortified regions on the state borders during the night of of 22 June 1941;
b) Disperse all aircraft, including military planes among field airfields and thoroughly camouflage them before dawn on June 22 1941;
c) Bring all forces to a state of combat readiness without additional call up of conscript personnel. Prepare all measures to black out cities and installations.

Take no other measures without special permission.

[signed]
Timoshenko
Zhukov

Received by the the Western Special Military District at 0045 hours, 22 June 1941.
Dispatched to subordinate forces at 0225-0235 hours, June 22, 1941

NKO Order No. 2 was dispatched at 0715 hours on June 22 ordering all means necessary to repel the invasion but not allowing permission to cross the frontier or overfly Finland or Romania but permitting the bombing of East Prussia.

NKO Order No. 3 was sent at 2115 hours ordering specific counterattacks of areas that had been penetrated and the encirclement and destruction of German forces including the crossing of the borders from East Prussia to Hungary.

And so it goes. The Germans were able to quickly penetrate due to the fact that the frontier was guarded by the NKVD and not the army. In some cases the larger infantry formations were as much as 60 kilometers from the borders. That being said,....the armed forces had been given clear orders to defend themselves and no orders forbidding engaging the Nazis had been given.


Personally I suspect if the Soviets had been in readiness and allowed to fight a proper defensive, the Germans wouldn't have gotten too far beyond the Soviet part of Poland or thereabouts. A lot harder to mount a Blitzkrieg if the other guy isn't saddled with some dozen major and absurd handicaps, methinks.

The may have inflicted more casualties but the outcome would likely have been much the same. The Red Army was simply not ready for war, much less to stand its ground and fight a defensive war.



Cheers.

[Kraxis]

Agreed...

And if we assume te Russians knew a war was coming soon (rather than knowingthe specific time), and had moved up the available troops, I'm pretty certain the first weeks would have been even more brutal, but also even more decisive.
I doubt the Russians could have stopped the German advance and would liekly just have suffered the infamous Kiev encirclement near the border and much earlier instead.

[HunkinElvis]

In addition to the things mentioned above (including Stalinrad and Kursk), the war front stretched longer as the Germans moved east. This left holes for the Russians to go through. The Germans could've done better if they concentrated their attacks at one or two areas. Instead, Hitler spread his tank divisions too far to assist each other. If the Germans went on the defensive at Kursk, they might've had a better chance. In an earlier battle, the Germans were able to stop a Russian counter-attack near Moscow.

During the early stage of the war, the Germans had tanks that were heavy and ate lots of gas. They took a long time to manufacture. USSR's T-34s made these tanks obsolete. In addition to this, much of the German tanks were not Tigers but older tanks that had weaker armour. The T-34's sloping armour deflected shells that hit it, while the German Tiger Tanks didn't have sloped armour. Although the later German models had sloped armour, these expensive and heavy tanks took too long to make. The T-34s were easier and faster to make. There were even T-34s that went to war straight from the factory. The German tanks were heavily outnumbered by the Russian tanks.

[Sarmatian]

It is a german trait to make things to last. While I like that in german cars, it proved to be a big mistake when it came to tanks. I read somewhere that german tanks were of a such a good quality that they could last a couple of decades. That was unneccesary as, on average, they survived only several months on the front. End even if they survived, they would become obsolete long before they become non operationl. And production of such tanks was both costly and time consuming. One panther tank probably costed several times more than a T-34. Okay maybe it was better than T-34, but surely wasn't better than two or three T-34s.

[Kraxis]

That's true, the German tanks had plenty of little things in them that were suberbly made. For instance, the ball bearings were just excellent and could last a long time.

[Brenus]

“Okay maybe it was better than T-34, but surely wasn't better than two or three T-34s.” The Panther was a improved copy of the T34, so it was better design… However, the Panther had so kind of troubles with gear box and sometimes taking fire without reasons.
And if the German tanks were so good, why nobody used them after the war? I found a manual for the maintenance of the Panther in French, and I know the French Army used them for a while, however, comparing with the Sherman and the T34, it is just a foot note in history.
The best tank produced was the T34. From the first model up to the latest model, it proved its adaptability. New turret, new gun, increasing the crew number, largest caterpillars, it proved itself as tank, tank hunter, artillery platform. It worked under all climates, from Leningrad to Rostov, going in Manchuria, Korea then in Vietnam.

The problem is when we debate of the Eastern Front, we, westerners –excluding here the former Communist countries- are still under influence of the re-writing of history by German generals and historians.
History isn’t writing by the winners, but by the survivors. That lead the German generals to blame Hitler, Himmler, Goering for all mistakes, even theirs. Because the Russians were al well communists, and because communists were BAD, no skills and heroism could be given to them, and of course all their production was a copy of what we, westerners produced…
So, no, sorry, the concept of mechanised troops was designed by the Russians. To combine of infantry and tanks was a Russian concept, not a German one. The proof? Most of the German artillery was still horse-powered, even in 1941.

The so-called German supremacy came from surprise and gambles. It worked against France when the attack came from the Ardennes. But if the French HQ had given a real look of the aerial pictures taken by the Block 174, it would have been a disaster for the Germans.
The gamble to finish off the Red Army near the borders failed and, as predicted by people as von Rundsedt (who recognised that the Blitzkrieg concept couldn’t work in countries like Russia).

[Sarmatian]

“Okay maybe it was better than T-34, but surely wasn't better than two or three T-34s.” The Panther was a improved copy of the T34, so it was better design… However, the Panther had so kind of troubles with gear box and sometimes taking fire without reasons.
And if the German tanks were so good, why nobody used them after the war? I found a manual for the maintenance of the Panther in French, and I know the French Army used them for a while, however, comparing with the Sherman and the T34, it is just a foot note in history.
The best tank produced was the T34. From the first model up to the latest model, it proved its adaptability. New turret, new gun, increasing the crew number, largest caterpillars, it proved itself as tank, tank hunter, artillery platform. It worked under all climates, from Leningrad to Rostov, going in Manchuria, Korea then in Vietnam.

The problem is when we debate of the Eastern Front, we, westerners –excluding here the former Communist countries- are still under influence of the re-writing of history by German generals and historians.
History isn’t writing by the winners, but by the survivors. That lead the German generals to blame Hitler, Himmler, Goering for all mistakes, even theirs. Because the Russians were al well communists, and because communists were BAD, no skills and heroism could be given to them, and of course all their production was a copy of what we, westerners produced…
So, no, sorry, the concept of mechanised troops was designed by the Russians. To combine of infantry and tanks was a Russian concept, not a German one. The proof? Most of the German artillery was still horse-powered, even in 1941.

The so-called German supremacy came from surprise and gambles. It worked against France when the attack came from the Ardennes. But if the French HQ had given a real look of the aerial pictures taken by the Block 174, it would have been a disaster for the Germans.
The gamble to finish off the Red Army near the borders failed and, as predicted by people as von Rundsedt (who recognised that the Blitzkrieg concept couldn’t work in countries like Russia).

I agree. I said "maybe it was better", but in my opinion T-34 was by far the best all-round tank of the ww2. Reliable, easy to use, good armor, good penetration, cheap... But a lot of people say that panther was better, so I leave to everyone to make their own mind.

I think one of the important reasons of french defeat was their own commanders. They were veterans from the ww1, and they didn't adapt to the new type of warfare. They prepared to wage defensive war against the germans, like they did in ww1, relying on the maginout line. Only de Gaulle advocated for a new approach, but being a young general at that time, no one listened.
So when Hitler encouraged Stallins purge of the army, maybe in a way, he was doing him a favor. Maybe introduction of the more flexible and more willing to learn young commanders is why russians adapted so quickly the german tactics and produced so quickly effective counter-tactics, which the germans couldn't counter.

[Pannonian]

So when Hitler encouraged Stallins purge of the army, maybe in a way, he was doing him a favor. Maybe introduction of the more flexible and more willing to learn young commanders is why russians adapted so quickly the german tactics and produced so quickly effective counter-tactics, which the germans couldn't counter.
The officers who were purged were precisely those who advocated the new style of warfare. Tukhachevsky, the prime exponent of Deep Operations, was purged, as were most of the others. Rokossovsky was lucky to survive. Without the purges, the Soviets would have had the same doctrine that they later adopted with great success, but with officers at all levels versed in that doctrine.

[Sarmatian]

The officers who were purged were precisely those who advocated the new style of warfare. Tukhachevsky, the prime exponent of Deep Operations, was purged, as were most of the others. Rokossovsky was lucky to survive. Without the purges, the Soviets would have had the same doctrine that they later adopted with great success, but with officers at all levels versed in that doctrine.

I didn't know that. Thanks for the info...

[Kraxis]

Actually the Panther had it in itself to be upgraded as well. It could take the 88L71 the Tiger II used, and there was developed an improved turret for this (for the Panther F). So the T34 wasn't alone with that ability (not to mention the Sherman as well).
Also it had inbuilt capabilities for upgrades to the sights and aditions to the sights. And late in the war it did make use of that by carrying IR searchlights. The vaunted T34 didn't have these capabilities (it could make use of an IR searchlight but only for the commander if it was installed without some serious restructuring inside the turret).

Also the Panthers caught fire for no apparent reason only early on with the Panther D. The later Panther A and G didn't have this problem, though they did break down now and then. However they didn't break down more than the T34, but since they were more complex machines they required more time in the shop, and they needed skilled labour to repair. The T34 and Sherman both broke down often enough, but both were simple machines that the crew could often fix themselves in the field.

Actually the Panther was used by a number of smaller nations, but since the factories were destroyed, there were no labour around with the skills forthe Panther and finally the technology had advanced by 1950 to make them fairly obsolete (the Sherman and T34 were also obsolete, but large stocks of them still existed, so why not use them?).

It made no sense to licensebuild Panthers, or just rip them off. The Germans were not allowed to build tanks (no army so why should they?), the Americans had their own tankprogramme, and the British had just sent the Centurion on the market. The French were far too proud to actually copy it and just kept the few survivors they got while they developed a tank of their own. So it is actually reasonable why the Panther was not continued as a production-tank.

[Grey_Fox]

The Israelis used Panthers in their early wars against the Arabs.

[Randarkmaan]

I thought the Israelis mostly used British tanks... Challengers and such...

[Grey_Fox]

The Challenger only came into service in 1983 in the British army, unless you mean the Centurion, which was used in 1967. Israel has been fighting since the day it was created, with Messerschmitts, Spitfires and Panthers - basically anything they could get their hands on.

[Randarkmaan]

Okay, and btw I meant Centurion...

[Kraxis]

Israel has been fighting since the day it was created, with Messerschmitts, Spitfires and Panthers - basically anything they could get their hands on.
Exactly... If they had been given Bren Carriers they would have used them.

As I argued it was technically a problem of production rather than one of quality, though that certainly did hurt when the Centurion, Pershing and IS III entered service.

[Brenus]

“The vaunted T34 didn't have these capabilities (it could make use of an IR searchlight but only for the commander if it was installed without some serious restructuring inside the turret).”

The T34 evolution was carried out in the T44 -1944- but only few 900 units were produced. However, we can considered that the next T54/55 -1950- to the T62 were improvement of the concept.

[Kraxis]

Yes, but the T54-55 wasn't anything close to a T34. They had the same background, but they were new tanks. Just like th Tiger II was a new tank and not just an upgrade to the Tiger E.
And the T44 was a structurally different machine. Closer to the T34 than the T54-55 were, but still a new tank.

When you have to change the entire chassis and structure of the tank it isn't really an inherent capability for upgrades, is it now?
However the turret is a different matter as you can technically mount different turrets on the same tank if they only fit the ring. And adding more armous is also an upgrade.

I would like to point out that I find the T44 to be a very interesting subject, much like the Panther II project, or the Schmalturm project for the Panther F.
However it is a new beast in the same 'family' as the T34.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The officers who were purged were precisely those who advocated the new style of warfare. Tukhachevsky, the prime exponent of Deep Operations, was purged, as were most of the others. Rokossovsky was lucky to survive. Without the purges, the Soviets would have had the same doctrine that they later adopted with great success, but with officers at all levels versed in that doctrine.

I agree here. Tuk' was an especially poignant loss. Without him, the tank-heavy formations developed by the Russians in 1940/1941 didn't have the balance needed for deep operations, they were simply large groupings of tanks to "counter" German armor concentrations.

Other points regarding posts prior to this:

T-34's

The T-34 was one of the classic designs of that war. Reliable, good range, good speed, good off-road ability, very nearly idiot-proof in maintenance. Early versions were under-gunned (the Russian 76mm was a superb gun by 1941 standards, but outclassed by late '42/early '43; the 85mm remained an effective choice into the 1950's).

The T-34 had little effect during Barbarossa, however, as it was deployed late and in relatively few numbers (a few to each unit, not massed deployments). It easily outclassed the Pzkw-II's, III's, and -38's which formed the bulk of German armor forces at that time. The later war T-34 outclassed the Pzkw-IV's it faced and proved a tough opponent even for the Pzkw-V's.

Though equally famous, the US Sherman -- even kitted out as a "Firefly" for the British -- was much more prone to burn, slower, less-well armored, and under-gunned compared to a T-34. The Sherman "peaked" as a design at El Alamein. Of course, we did build a snot-load of them (sorry for the technical language) and they were reliable as all get-out unless you were unfortunate enough to be assigned to a "dual-drive" platoon. It was a very versatile hull, lots of variants etc., but never overcame its basic limitations.

The Surprise of Barbarossa

I have read that part of the success of Barbarossa can be attributed to the Soviets being positioned way to far forward and with too much of their force pool in an "offensive" formation -- that Hitler started his offensive a few months before the Russians would have been going after Romania. Not sure if anyone has confirmed this with good primary data though.

[Pontifex Rex]

I have read that part of the success of Barbarossa can be attributed to the Soviets being positioned way to far forward and with too much of their force pool in an "offensive" formation -- that Hitler started his offensive a few months before the Russians would have been going after Romania. Not sure if anyone has confirmed this with good primary data though.

The forward divisions (First Eschelon) were anywhere from a few kilometres to 150 kilometres in depth from the front and this created a serious problem in command and control in the opening days. David Glantz, for one, has a number of excellent books where he examines the dispositions and make up the Red Army during the opening days of Barbarossa. He reads Russian, has had access to the Russian achives and does an excellent job with chapter note, charts and appendices, clearly referencing the sources.

I would suggest "Stumbling Colossus" or "Before Stalingrad".

Cheers.

[Watchman]

By all accounts the T-34 was a really, really nice all-around tank for the time. Fast, rugged, reasonably tough for its weight, and well enough armed. And simple enough to be churned out by the thousands especially after the huge factory complexes moved to the Urals got up and running. I understand the early ones suffered a bit from having a two-man turret (a common problem with all early-war tanks - as the tank commander had to double also as loader or gunner he was sort of overwhelmed) but the /85 upgrade apparently included an enlarged turret housing an additional crewman, aside from giving the tank a big enough gun to take on pretty much anything the Germans could wield in any real numbers.

The Panther was by all accounts essentially a more sophisticated and refined copy of the T-34, as such superior in most respects (at least once assorted teething problems were fixed), and often cited as the best all-around tank of the war. It just had a wee bit of a problem given the stage of the war it came to use in - it had something like three times the number of parts the T-34 had, and not a few of those were rather "high tech" by the standards of the time. Basically, it was just plain over-engineered for the ever thinner stretched German war industry that suffered not only from an ever greater shortage of assorted raw materials (many more obscure metals in particular were apparently in short supply) but also from the attentions of the RAF Bomber Command, its American counterpart and various guerillas, partisans and resistance saboteurs wherever appopriate.

Nevermind now having to cope with Adolf's crackpot wonder-weapon projects on the side to boot. I don't know how much resources the V-series rockets consumed, but those could certainly have been employed to address more pressing issues than blowing up a few London city blocks.

By most accounts most American and British line tanks left quite a bit to be desired (Soviet tanks crews apparently considered the lend-lease American stuff to be too slow, vulnerable and under-gunned), but even if Shermans were lukewarm machines there was an essentially endless supply of them available to make up for it; the US was an industrial powerhouse that not only had nothing like a shortage of raw materials, its factories were also well and truly out of the reach of any real interference (it was also able to sink a round billion dollars - an astronomical sum by the currency rates of the day - into the rather blue-sky Manhattan Project on the side...). Plus, unlike the Germans who reputedly were forced to resort to mechanized formation commanders pretty much stealing fuel from each other to be able to mount the Battle of the Bulge, none of the Allies had any real fuel problems as such although as usual actually shipping the supplies to the front might be easier said than done (the solutions could get rather impressive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_pluto)).
But then again their logistics were largely free of partisan, maquis and enemy air force attention too.

[Randarkmaan]

I think my signature sort of sums up why the T-34 and Shermans were better allround tanks than most of the German ones.

[Watchman]

Heh. I've heard a story about some senior officer at one point reporting to Hitler that intelligence estimates placed monthly Soviet tank production at 1200. "Absolut unmöglich!" or something similarly analytical was Adolf's comment.
Unusually enough, he was correct in a way. The rate was 2200...

A certain tendency to presuppose reality was what you wanted it to be, as well as chronic underestimation of one's enemies (whether due to them being "soft and degenerate democrats" or "Bolshevik subhumans"), and that enough will could overcome issues such as bad supply, poor preparations, mind-boggling distances and truly absurdly gross disparities in sheer material resources, seem to have been recurring problems for Die Reich. But then again it was ruled by a vulgar-Nietzschean ideology that sneered at rationalism and intellectualism and glorified emotion and will...

[Kraxis]

I think the numbers Hitler balked at was actually planes (and more of course), but the point comes across pretty well anyway.

[Grey_Fox]

I remember reading in max Hasting's "Armageddon: The Battle For Germany 1944-45" that the amount of resources put into the producution of the V weapons would have been able to build something in the region of 40,000 planes (the number could easily be higher, it's been a while since I read it and my memory is hazy).

[Watchman]

Ugh. Well, it's not like they'd had the fuel for all those planes anyway...

[Grey_Fox]

As I said, it's hazy, the number could also be a lot lower.