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No, I am not saying Stalins keep attacking without establishing defensive positions doctrine is the only reason for high Soviet casulties. As I stated earlier there are many different reasons one being inexpieranced Red Army troops fight against seasoned battle hardened Whermacht veterans. I am simple saying that Stalins attack,attack,attack doctrine was the reason whole Soviet armies were encircled and destroyed in the first months of the attack. Couple that with Heinz Gurdarians brilliance at performing the double pincer movment, and you have German divisions destroying whole Soviet armies. Stalin had no concept of military doctrine and I think he was a big reason why the Red Army became very close to losing the war in the beginning of Borborossa. Just my opinion.
I think you are mistaken that the Soviets and Stalin had no concept of military doctrine. The fact remains that they were trying very hard in the year leading up to Barbarossa to not only expand and modernize their forces, but undertake massive reorganizations of their basic unit structures. Their troops were arrayed in a double echelon along the far western border and were preparing to engage the Germans head on if war came, they ended up being taken by surprise and were completely unready for war.
The Germans advanced over 1,000 miles in the span of 4 months, with almost half of that occurring in the initial strike, which cut off and destroyed the bulk of the Soviet forces in little more than a month. Do to poor organization and training most Soviet forces were incapable of conducting an orderly fighting withdrawal, especially in the face of the rapid German advance.
I personally think that the Soviets made the best decision they could, throw what they had at the Germans to try and slow them down. Order their existing and cut off forces to dig in and fight to the last. Upsetting German time tables by even a week made the Soviet position that much better, IMO the sacrifices of those troops was better served doing what they did then letting them run back to Moscow. You can see the effect this had as the German advance slowed in the subsequent months of the campaign. The Soviets traded mountains of blood to wear down the Germans, forcing them to use up their supplies and reserves to overcome defenses.
The strategy ultimately worked. The Germans ended up stuck outside Moscow short on supplies having expended their reserves, the Soviets were bringing in fresh units and veterans from the East and they had time to prepare proper defenses. Where you can be critical of Stalins attack, attack, attack method was in the Moscow defense where many units were wasted for little gain and without purpose. This is also the moment Stalin steps back and lets his generals start to do their job.
So, what would you have done differently after the initial attack given what the Soviets had to work with that would have given a better result?
There are records of Stalin meeting several generals and other members of the government on the first day after the invasion. That Stalin did nothing is has no basis in fact. Nor did he refuse to authorize the troops to shoot back. His order on the night of the German attack actually informed the troops that was was imminent and that an attack was expected at any order. The troops were to occupy their positions and be put on full alert. Only the last point of a long message stated not to give in to provocations - Stalin to the very end wrongly believed that a diplomatic solution was still possible and that war not a foregone conclusion. Hindsight is 20/20. But an order not to give in to provocation is not the same as forbidding troops to shoot back - there is an obvious difference between a provocation and an invasion of your homeland.
That order was actually a long standing order not to provoke the Germans. It was issued when the Luftwaffe began doing overflights of Soviet positions and bases in the weeks leading up to Barbarossa. You are correct that Stalin was still searching for a political solution or at least a delay to finish the reorganization of the Red Army before war broke out.
When the invasion started, the order was of course rescinded and the intention was never to tell their troops not to respond to an invasion. However, Soviet communications were extremely poor (to the point that orders sometimes took DAYS to reach all elements of a unit) especially at the basic levels and many units were confused as to what they should do as they were under strict orders not to respond to the Germans in order to avoid provocation and giving them a clear cassus belli.
I disagree that it was the Russian strategy that prevented the fall of Moscow and Leningrad. Moscow and Leningrad would have fallen if Hitler had not halted his army and divided his forces. That pause cost him three weeks. He had previously squandered approx the same time in in order to punish Chzekoslavakia. So this delay in front of Moscow further compounded the error by cutting down the time available before the Russian winter kicked in.
BTW
It's weird, but Hitler fortunately for the allies, had that disconcerting habit of pausing just when he was at the brink of victory. He did it at Dunkirk when he chose to pause and decided to let the Luftwaffe try instead. Result? Most of the British expeditionary forces escaped along with French contingents.
Then when about to win the air war over England, something necessary in order to make operation Sea Lion possible, he shifted from targeting radar stations to bombing cities allowing the RAF to recuperate and the reestablish of adequate radar stations .
Then at Stalingrad, a dubious target to begin with, he paused again and divided his forces weakening the army with an unfeasable effort at Russia oil fields that ultimately resulted in a retreat.
Then when Paulson asked for permission to break out he refused or paused only to later send an inadequate rescue force under Guderian when it was too late and Paulson could no longer break out.
He also refused to inform Japan of his intended Barbarossa plans and deprived himself of their assistance because he wanted the glory for Germany. Only when things became a bit unclear did he ask for Japanese assistance.
He did the same with Italy by not substantially reinforcing their military machine for a self sustained effort in order to reserve the gflory for Germany.
Then at Kursk he paused too long in order to include Tiger Tanks which actually provided the Russians with time to dig in with formidable fortifications that included land ditches and minds which made progress extremely costly.
Furthermore he ignored the advice that he should not start a two-front war. Dedicated his jets to bombing missions only until it was too late-another pause.
Then he added the USA to his enemies by officially declaring war. True, the USA was alkready substantially involed via the Lend Leas. But direct troop involvement could have been avoided. Unless of course he was hopeing for a USSR USA confrontation in which he could sue for peace if he could convince the Allies that the real enemies were the communist Soviets.
Then on D day he held back his tanks. Another hesitation? Then again they say he was asleep and no one dared to wake him. On the other hand if his general had been given more leeway permission would have been unnecessary. So there again his meddling comes forth as a causae.
In any case, I think that his meddling is the real cause for most of what transpired after Barbarossa got under way. In fact, his generals wrere always complaining that he did not permit them to use their training properly. Stalin ultimately proved to have more common sense in that area.
I think you are mistaken that the Soviets and Stalin had no concept of military doctrine. The fact remains that they were trying very hard in the year leading up to Barbarossa to not only expand and modernize their forces, but undertake massive reorganizations of their basic unit structures. Their troops were arrayed in a double echelon along the far western border and were preparing to engage the Germans head on if war came, they ended up being taken by surprise and were completely unready for war.
The Germans advanced over 1,000 miles in the span of 4 months, with almost half of that occurring in the initial strike, which cut off and destroyed the bulk of the Soviet forces in little more than a month. Do to poor organization and training most Soviet forces were incapable of conducting an orderly fighting withdrawal, especially in the face of the rapid German advance.
I personally think that the Soviets made the best decision they could, throw what they had at the Germans to try and slow them down. Order their existing and cut off forces to dig in and fight to the last. Upsetting German time tables by even a week made the Soviet position that much better, IMO the sacrifices of those troops was better served doing what they did then letting them run back to Moscow. You can see the effect this had as the German advance slowed in the subsequent months of the campaign. The Soviets traded mountains of blood to wear down the Germans, forcing them to use up their supplies and reserves to overcome defenses.
The strategy ultimately worked. The Germans ended up stuck outside Moscow short on supplies having expended their reserves, the Soviets were bringing in fresh units and veterans from the East and they had time to prepare proper defenses. Where you can be critical of Stalins attack, attack, attack method was in the Moscow defense where many units were wasted for little gain and without purpose. This is also the moment Stalin steps back and lets his generals start to do their job.
So, what would you have done differently after the initial attack given what the Soviets had to work with that would have given a better result?
Stalins deployment of his troops at the border greatly improved the odds in favor of the Germans. Instead of being held back from the frontier so as to counter any German attack, they were all massed along the border which as we know was a huge mistake. The Red Army was built around offensive action, they had no defensive doctrine and had no serious attention in developing one. The most basic preparationsbfor defense, such as the establishment of a central headquarters responsible for coordinating the deployment of reinforcements in the event of a attack had not been taken. The idea was that in the event of any attack, the Red Army would move forward and engage the enemy on enemy soil whick of coarse wasn't the case. So I do agree that a offensive plan was logical because the one thing the Red Army was trained and equipped to do was take the offensive and had some experience in doing. Stalins actions both before June 22 and afterward, are consistent with the behavior of a man whose military ideas were firmly rooted in the past.
Thanks for clarifying. Of course the half-truths didn't originate with you. The history of the Great Patriotic War is unfortunately a confused affair in large part due to failure of the Soviet Government to be open about. From the very beginning, access to information was severely restricted, and the history books released by the government hid certain facts and embellished others. Difficult questions such as why the Red Army, which was touted as the best in the world in the Soviet Union, did so badly in the first stages of the war were not really answered, and the answers kept changing. When Khrushchev came to power after Stalin's death, for political reasons he needed to portray Stalin in the worst possible light. He also came out with a "new and improved" official history of the GPW, highlighting Stalin's idiocy and incompetency. Some things were blamed on Stalin which were not really his fault, other things were plainly made up. Successive Soviet leaders continued to politicize the topic for their own purposes. Towards the later years of the Soviet Union, cynical dissidents rejected all the "official" histories and came out with their own version of events. However, not having access to all the facts or only fragments of information, their efforts resulted more in conspiracy theories than actual history.
Can you tell me please what those conspiracy theories were, because in all honesty I still can't understand the reason behind the disaster of the summer of 1941. Up to the point that even conspiracy theory could be a better explanation then everything I've heard so far (and I don't mean exclusively on this forum)
Can you tell me please what those conspiracy theories were, because in all honesty I still can't understand the reason behind the disaster of the summer of 1941. Up to the point that even conspiracy theory could be a better explanation then everything I've heard so far (and I don't mean exclusively on this forum)
I use the word conspiracy loosely but one theory I am referring to is the idea that Stalin planned to invade Germany in 1941. It is peddled by a popular author and former Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Rezun (aka Victor Suvorov).
Basically the reasons can be broken down into two categories:
1. The Red Army was not mobilized and deployed. It needed a full month for mobilization but the warning from intelligence services came much too late. Some measures were taken in mid-June to move the troops to the border there was too little time, plus the Soviet leadership hesitated to declare an open mobilization which would trigger the war immediately (as it did in 1914). The German troops were, on the other hand, fully mobilized. All that they needed to do was transfer their forces from the Balkans.
2. The Red Army was qualitatively much inferior to the Wehrmacht (as was every other other army of the period). Due to very fast growth of the Soviet armed forces, there was shortage of officers. Secondly, following the Winter War which served as a reality check, the Red Army was engaged in a massive reorganization. For example, all armor was reorganized into massive "mechanized corps" which in theory would be similar to the German panzer divisions but in practice were hard to control, had too many tanks and not enough infantry and artillery. While Germany gained valuable experience with armored warfare in Poland and France, the Soviets did not really know what to do with their armor or how to use it effectively. The Soviet Air Force, similarly, was unprepared. Only recently the the Soviet Union begin to modernize its planes and those that it had in 1941 were outdated. Also, the USSR was in the process of upgrading its airstrips with pavement which severely restricted the number of airstrips available for maneuver when the war began. Lastly, because the border shifted westward in 1939, old defensive fortifications were either mothballed or disarmed while the defenses at the new border were largely incomplete.
To a large extent the Germans simply got lucky. Had they attacked a year later, chances are things would have turned out differently. The Soviets would have had more time to prepare.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Torrachris
Stalins deployment of his troops at the border greatly improved the odds in favor of the Germans. Instead of being held back from the frontier so as to counter any German attack, they were all massed along the border which as we know was a huge mistake. The Red Army was built around offensive action, they had no defensive doctrine and had no serious attention in developing one. The most basic preparationsbfor defense, such as the establishment of a central headquarters responsible for coordinating the deployment of reinforcements in the event of a attack had not been taken. The idea was that in the event of any attack, the Red Army would move forward and engage the enemy on enemy soil whick of coarse wasn't the case. So I do agree that a offensive plan was logical because the one thing the Red Army was trained and equipped to do was take the offensive and had some experience in doing. Stalins actions both before June 22 and afterward, are consistent with the behavior of a man whose military ideas were firmly rooted in the past.
Positioning troops away from the border would have enabled the Germans to simply occupy large amounts of Soviet territory without a fight. Secondly, German mechanized units were capable of covering over 100 miles a day. For example, in the central sector, on June 27, 5 days into the campaign, German princes closed around the Soviet Western Front, east of Minsk, or 250 miles deep into Soviet territory. To put that into perspective, suppose that the Army of the Potomac, leaving Washington DC made a giant sweep around the Army of Northern Virginia and ended up in Greensboro, NC, cutting of all of Virginia from the Confederacy in 5 days!
To counteract blitzkrieg the Red Army needed to attack the flanks of German spearheads, especially the gaps between their fast moving armored forces and infantry divisions. The Red Army tried doing that but unfortunately their attacked were often poorly coordinated and ineffective for other reasons.
I agree with everything you stated accept for one point. I feel that if the Red Army stationed their troops back from the border then they could of held strong defensive positions and not been swallowed whole by the German spearhead. Stalins orders to keep attacking prevented local commanders from establishing a defensive position against which the German advance would, eventually exhaust itself. At the same time the lsck of communications meant that the constant Soviet attacks were uncoordinated and eadily beaten off. So the Soviet attacks slowed the Germans down but had no effect on their progress. The problem for the Russians was that even with the new medium and heavy tanks that they possessed, they were still vulnerable to air to ground attacks. Although German tankers and antitank gunners were horrified to find their shells bouncing ofg new Soviet vehicles, their reliance on tacttical air support meant that the Russian tanks were mostly destroyed from the air or by the air defense units accompanying the ground troops whose 8.8 guns were effective against even the heaviest Soviet tanks. So as result the Battle of Smolensk was one of the most deftly executed German operations of the entire war. Made all the more impressive by the fact that Hoth and Guderian were seriously overstretched and their men exhausted, their vehicles wearing out. As I said earlier, the complex German double envelopment would be repeated over and over again in the east. So Smolensk proved to be a signpost pointing to future operations, both that occurred and thosr that were planned for the Red Army.
“In peacetime Germany, about 18,000 or 20,000 people a year chose to commit suicide, even without being in such a position. Here is a man who sees 50,000 or 60,000 of his soldiers die defending themselves bravely to the end. How can he surrender himself to the Bolshevists?!
First he tells the poor guy not to break out. Then he orders him to break out when it's too late. Then he orders him to commit suicide.
BTW
A smaller country would have succumbed. What aided the Russians immensely was their vast homeland which permitted an industrial retreat beyond the reach of German forces.
First he tells the poor guy not to break out. Then he orders him to break out when it's too late. Then he orders him to commit suicide.
Paulas was the first German field marshal to surrender. He was just a staff officer who had been studying the Soviet Union in light of the projected invasion plan which is why Hitler chose him to lead the 6th Army. He was know where close to the brilliance of other generals like Rommel, Gurdarian or Manstein but Hitler believed he could get the job done. Why did he surrrender? There are a number of different reasons. He was fed up with Hitlers promise to resupply him. The 6th Army was the largest unit of its type in the world and almost twice as large a regular German Army unit. It should of been clear that supplying them from the air was impossible. The maximum 120 tons the Luffwaffe could deliver a day was far less than the minimum 800 tons they needed. Also Hitlers promise to send a army group under Manstain to beak him out whick never succeded also pushed him to surrender. Keep in mind the Soviets offered that if surrendered within 24 hours then he would receive a guarantee of safety for all prisoners, medical care and "normal" food rations. Hitler assumed that Paulus would fight on or take his own life but that wasnt the case. He was actually treated fair in Soviet captivity with his own dacha and personal chef until his release in 1953.
Paulas was the first German field marshal to surrender. He was just a staff officer who had been studying the Soviet Union in light of the projected invasion plan which is why Hitler chose him to lead the 6th Army. He was know where close to the brilliance of other generals like Rommel, Gurdarian or Manstein but Hitler believed he could get the job done. Why did he surrrender? There are a number of different reasons. He was fed up with Hitlers promise to resupply him. The 6th Army was the largest unit of its type in the world and almost twice as large a regular German Army unit. It should of been clear that supplying them from the air was impossible. The maximum 120 tons the Luffwaffe could deliver a day was far less than the minimum 800 tons they needed. Also Hitlers promise to send a army group under Manstain to beak him out whick never succeded also pushed him to surrender. Keep in mind the Soviets offered that if surrendered within 24 hours then he would receive a guarantee of safety for all prisoners, medical care and "normal" food rations. Hitler assumed that Paulus would fight on or take his own life but that wasnt the case. He was actually treated fair in Soviet captivity with his own dacha and personal chef until his release in 1953.
I said Guderian! It was Meinstein. Thanx for the correction.
Paulus got off well but most of the 90,000 prisoners perished. Also, the reason he was treated well was because he cooperated with the Russian anti Nazi propaganda.
Actually, the German advance had serious weakness due to it's non German flanks composed of Hungarians, Rumanians and Italians. These flanks were easily pierced and that permitted the envelopment of the Germans in Stalingrad. When Mussolini asked about the casualties of his troops in that Stalingrad debacle he was told that they suffered very little because they had bolted for Italy at the first sign of the cannon barrage.
Accepting the initial generous Russian terms of surrender would have been the wisest thing to do Better yet, ignoring Hitler's order was even wiser from, a military standpoint After all, Rommel received the same order but ignored it. . Whether that contributed to his conspiracy demise when he returned to Germany I don't know. I do know that he was placed in charge of Normandy defenses. So he seems to have still been highly regarded. Then again it's hard to imagine Hitler being the forgiving type. I do recall reading that he was approached by another general in relation to the Hitler assasination conspiracy but he refused.
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