Quote Originally Posted by Brenus
Then I think the best army, from 1943-1944 was the Red Army. The over manoeuvre the Germans, even if some defensive battles of withdrawal from the Germans were stunning. However, in the over all, the soviet tactic in combining Infantry and Tanks, covered by powerful artillery and the best of the Assault planes, just submerge the Germans like they ( the Germans) did to the French, the English, the Polish, Yugoslav etc…
I have to admit, Brenus may have an excellent point. Here is an excerpt from a Wikipedia article that sheds some light:

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army

Deep Operations

Later in the 1920s and during the 1930s, Soviet military theorists introduced the concept of deep battle.[12] It was a direct consequence from the experience with wide, sweeping movements of cavalry formations during the Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War. Deep Operations encompassed multiple maneuver by multiple Corps or Army sized formations simultaneously. It was not meant to deliver a victory in a single operation, but rather multiple operations conducted in parallel or successively were meant to guarantee victory. In this, Deep operations differed from the usual interpretation of the Blitzkrieg doctrine. The objective of Deep Operations was to attack the enemy simultaneously throughout the depth of his ground force to induce a catastrophic failure in his defensive system. Soviet deep-battle theory was driven by technological advances and the hope that maneuver warfare offered opportunities for quick, efficient, and decisive victory. The concurrent development of aviation and armor provided a physical impetus for this doctrinal evolution within the Red Army. Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky stated that airpower should be "employed against targets beyond the range of infantry, artillery, and other arms. For maximum tactical effect aircraft should be employed in mass, concentrated in time and space, against targets of the highest tactical importance."

Deep Operations were first formally expressed as a concept in the Red Army's 'Field Regulations' of 1929, but was only finally codified by the army in 1936 in the 'Provisional Field Regulations' of 1936. However the Great Purge of 1937–1939 removed many of the leading officers of the Red Army (including Tukhachevsky), and the concept was abandoned - to the detriment of the Red Army during the Winter War - until opportunities to use it evolved later during World War II. At that time, the Red Army fought in major border incidents against the Japanese, in 1938 and 1939.
Essentially, once the German impetus was curtailed and the Red Army could introduce newer equipment to implement such a doctrine, that is what they accomplished. It was against such a doctrine that we trained when I was serving during the Cold War period. The idea of encountering such a force was intimidating to say the least-especially the thought of having to use tactical nuclear weapons to prevent a deep penetration.