Great Heros! Geh!

[rvg]

Except in rare cases, that's a myth, much like "General Winter" which is really just a convenient excuse for losing. In most cases, Russian soldiers were pretty well equipped and had excellent commanders and they were pretty adaptable, too, managing to minimize their weaknesses and maximize their strengths, as evident against Prussian under Frederick the Great, French under Napoleon, Germany in WW2 and so on...

There are exceptions, of course. WW1 is one of them, where Russian army was truly in a pathetic state and had pretty bad commanders, except Brusilov.

During the Winter War of 1940 the Red Army didn't exactly shine either.

[Sarmatian]

During the Winter War of 1940 the Red Army didn't exactly shine either.

True, but reasons for that were mentioned several times in this thread so I didn't think there was need to repeat it...

If Russian soldiers were so great, then why did Napoleon slaughter those armies that were sent out, and the Ruskies retreat over most of their own country; and again millions were captured by the Nazis - the country was almost bled dry due to the truly appalling tactics that were employed.

In which battle did he slaughter them? Borodino? There he had numerical advantage and the losses were similar on both sides. It may appeared to be a Russian defeat from a tactical point of view, but strategically, it was great victory. At the beggining of WW2, due to purges and modernization, army was in a pretty bad state and suffered terrible defeats. Nevertheless, it was reorganized in very short time and managed to fight German army to a standstill and to drive them back. Pretty good if you ask me... Especially when you consider the excellent state of German army in 1941, great commanders, great morale, technological advantages...

[rory_20_uk]

Stalin took an early lead in trying to loose the war with his purges, and Nazi Germany made good use of this.
Germany then caught up for lost ground having delayed the attack too late, splitting targets, no winter preparations (the winter does help when the enemy guns don't work) and finally copying Russian tactics of holding strategically unimportant ground for no reason; the persecution of the locals was a genius move, not only loosing masses of potential troops but also requiring massive garrisons to protect the captured land. This helped reduce an armoured fist to three weak increasingly infantry based forces

The tenacity of the Russians isn't in doubt, and the war did show about the only time that Communism works with its fixed command economy.

Against Napoleon I think the Russians did so well as they were not breakable as other armies were. But I don't see how you can discount the use of the weather when the Russians retreated, only to advance after the winter had set in.

[Watchman]

It's simple math really. The Russians were by default used to the vicious inner Eurasian winter, since they lived through it every year; wannabe invaders from the warmer western parts of Europe... weren't. (Note that playing the winter card didn't normally work against others used to similarly mean seasons, like the Scandinavians, Polish-Lithuanians, any bunch of smelly horsemen from the inner steppes...)

Ergo, mass frostbites and freezings, guns and motors freezing solid, and what-have-you fun and games. The Russians weren't stupid; they knew they had ample amounts of real estate they could afford to yield if necessary to buy the time needed for the other guy's logistics to get totally screwed up. And the snows to come.
Oh, and then there's the infamous raspustsina(sp?), when the roads turn into so much bottomless mud. Does something interesting to logistics and mobility.

Tended to work like a charm much of the time, although that trading ground for time thing wasn't always done in a very voluntary and organised fashion (eg. with the Germans).

[Husar]

Of course they used the winter, most european invaders were not used to those really cold temperatures which gave them a considerable disadvantage, not only the normal soldiers who's fingers are freezing, making the use of his gun harder but also tanks or carriages getting stuck in mud, plane engines that cease working (the Russians had some tricks to get their own planes in the air, the rest was target practice) etc.
Of course it was the fault of the invaders to consider that but saying it had no impact and russian soldiers were just superior is plain wrong IMO.

[Sarmatian]

No one said it didn't have any effect. Term "General Winter" (and sometimes "General Snow" - Russians sometimes refer to it as "General Mrazov") refers to excuses by various armies, most notably French and German that they were defeated by Russian winter. They weren't defeated by Russian winter, they were defeated by Russian army which used climate, among many other things, to its advantage. It's only logical - if your troops are trained to fight at night and enemy troops aren't, you'll try to fight at night, if you have superior cavalry, you'll try fight in a terrain that suits cavalry, if your army is better suited for winter warfare, you'll try to engage enemy in winter etc etc... It's what armies did since the ancient times.

It's not like those armies tried to invade Ethiopia and were surprised by sudden and very cold winter. That would be a valid excuse. But in the case of a country like Russia or some country in Scandinavia, it's just silly. Who would imagine snow and cold winter in Russia or Scandinavia, really...

In fact, the winter during Napoleon's invasion (1812-1813) was one of the mildest winters in years, not to mention that Grande Armee was pretty much defeated before the winter (Borodino was on 7th September)...

Oh, and then there's the infamous raspustsina(sp?)

Rasputitsa (Cyrillic - распу́тица)...

[CountArach]

In fact, the winter during Napoleon's invasion (1812-1813) was one of the mildest winters in years, not to mention that Grande Armee was pretty much defeated before the winter (Borodino was on 7th September)...

Errr... no... The French won that battle...

[Husar]

No one said it didn't have any effect. Term "General Winter" (and sometimes "General Snow" - Russians sometimes refer to it as "General Mrazov") refers to excuses by various armies, most notably French and German that they were defeated by Russian winter. They weren't defeated by Russian winter, they were defeated by Russian army which used climate, among many other things, to its advantage. It's only logical - if your troops are trained to fight at night and enemy troops aren't, you'll try to fight at night, if you have superior cavalry, you'll try fight in a terrain that suits cavalry, if your army is better suited for winter warfare, you'll try to engage enemy in winter etc etc... It's what armies did since the ancient times.

It's not like those armies tried to invade Ethiopia and were surprised by sudden and very cold winter. That would be a valid excuse. But in the case of a country like Russia or some country in Scandinavia, it's just silly. Who would imagine snow and cold winter in Russia or Scandinavia, really...

In fact, the winter during Napoleon's invasion (1812-1813) was one of the mildest winters in years, not to mention that Grande Armee was pretty much defeated before the winter (Borodino was on 7th September)...

Or in other words, if you cannot fight very well you wait until the enemy makes a mistake and is rendered unable to fight well, whether that makes you a great soldier/fighter/general depends entirely on definition, if the one who wins in the end is always the greatest, then yes, but doesn't mean he can hit the side of a barn at 200 yards using a sniper rifle, he may just have to wait for termites to eat a hole into it. And that's what others would not call a great soldier.
And no, I'm not trying to say Russians can't shoot, but that they were somehow greater or better equipped just because they could fight better during winter is a bit far-fetched IMO.

[Sarmatian]

Errr... no... The French won that battle...

Familiar with the term Pyrrhic victory?

Or in other words, if you cannot fight very well you wait until the enemy makes a mistake and is rendered unable to fight well, whether that makes you a great soldier/fighter/general depends entirely on definition, if the one who wins in the end is always the greatest, then yes, but doesn't mean he can hit the side of a barn at 200 yards using a sniper rifle, he may just have to wait for termites to eat a hole into it. And that's what others would not call a great soldier.
And no, I'm not trying to say Russians can't shoot, but that they were somehow greater or better equipped just because they could fight better during winter is a bit far-fetched IMO.

I didn't say they were greater or better (or in any other way inherently superior to other armies), where did you read that? I've said they were very adaptable and used every possible advantage they had over their opponents, and that's what you do in war. Like Germany used Stalin's purges and fed him false information in order to further destabilize Russian army. It's not like German generals said: "Hey, why are we doing this? Let's help them reorganize and fight them when they're at their strongest"...

My initial reply was directed to HoreTore stating that Russian just used to throw hordes of unarmed peasants at the enemy. That's a myth as much as "General Winter" or "General Mud" is... That's all I'm saying...