Operation "Sea Lion"

[Brenus]

Your answer is irrelevant - the french got their soldiers on a FORTIFIED LINE - no tanks, just infantry and bunkers, with planes far behind the border line.”
Absolutely not. The main units were near the Belgium borders with all the best equipped and trained mechanised units to confront the attack from the Germans as the French and the British were expecting the major offensive through Belgium. Which was initially the OKW plan (Yellow Plan), plan they were obliged to change following a plane accident that provided it to the French…
The Maginot line was suppose to secure the flanks and to protected the main territory from invasion and was at the borders… As the Russian were at the demarcation line in Poland…

“The USSR had way more soldiers than the 3mln I mentioned, but the point is that those unfotunate 3mln who got surrounded by the first german attack (only 1 out of 10 would survive the captivity) were an ASSAULT FORCE - with tanks and airplanes as close to the border as possible” No. There is no evidence of this.
To have an army with tanks and planes doesn’t in any way make this Army an assault force. That makes the army a mobile Army ready to counter manoeuvre an incoming enemy. As in the prepared plan mentioned earlier…
The Anglo-French had more tanks, more planes and more soldiers than the Germans but they were neither the aggressors nor an Assault Force…

“bit farther”: A bit? Brest Litovsk, then Minsk then Smolensk, you call that a bit. On my map, it is roughly 1,000 km…
Distance that, saying passing by, revokes your claim about a destruction at the borders…
Now, where are the Russian Mechanised Army Corps?
1 in Leningrad. (Military Region of)
2 in the Western Military Region
2 in Kiev
1 in Odessa
1 in Transbaikal
1 in Moscow
1 in the Caucasus
1 in Central Asia
and at the beginning of 1941 a 3rd is added in Kiev under Rokosovski.

So not at the borders...

However, these units are far to be at full capacity.
To face the 19 Panzer-Divisionen the Russian deployed 15 000 tanks (967 T34, 508 KV1-2).
On the 13,500 “old” tanks 3 650 are really able to fight. And they are not in units but spread within all the Soviet units… It is still 5,000 against 3,500 Germans, which were not all modern and well equipped…

“T-34 a failure?!?!? The BEST tank in ww2 a failure?
KV a failure? The world's first heavy tank a failure?”
Er, read before. The KV1 was a failure, I never spoke about the T34 as a failure.
And KV 1, yes a failure. Oh yeah, nice armour but too heavy, turret too slow to move, not visibility…

The KV 1 was not the first heavy tank in the world. The Soviet T 35 and the Char B 1 were before it. To be heavy is not enough if your weight trapped you in the mud…

“Nobody else had heavy tanks until late 1942 (Pzkpfw VI Tiger)!!! So KV was a failure compared to what?” You’ve got your answer above…

“so the comparison was irrelevant, you agree?” Fully relevant as you mentioned the seizure of material as proof that Stalin was ready to launch an offensive…

“WHAT? Obstolete Air forces?” You want it, you’ve got it:
Western Military District: 3 Mixed Air Division, 2 Bombers Divisions, 1 Fighter Division
I-153 and MIG 3 (I-153 are biplanes…), I 16, (Rata during the Spanish Civil War) and Assault Planes Il2 (at training) and YAK 1 (for training)
Bombers: AR 2 and SB.

Kiev: I 16. I 153, MIG 3 (only few!!!) etc

Ok, too long to copy (and translate, I surrender…) But yes, the Soviet Air Forces was equipped with obsolete planes…

“BT-7, Bystrohodnyi tank 7, a construction of Walter Christie, a light tank?” Yes, definitively yes. The name gives you a clue. Bistro, fast…

“Tanks drive quickly through the steppes, u know” I do know as I went there with a 4x4 and it took me quite around two weeks to reach Kursk.
I didn’t had to fight and repair. Maintenance is Tanks Units devil…
As a fomer crew member of a Tank I speak from experience...