CALM Discussion of the Eastern Front.

You mean i actually have to do some reading? Now that takes the fun out of life. First working at Uni, now working on the forums. Cheers ZR! But thanks for the heads-up. If i ever get my life back I'll add some of those books to the ever growing pile in the corner of my room.
Kitty

 

Excellent thread Von Poop and yes lets discuss this in a calm fashion!!!!! There is always the belief for example that the Russian Campaign simply consisted of Barbarossa, Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Bagration and the End when loads took place in between!

I'm not really that up on the Eastern Front - Bagration??????

 

It's not Bag-Ration, it's Bagration, Bah-grah-tzion ! Named after a Russian general in the Napoleonic Wars. The great Red Army offensive in Belarus in June 1944 in the same timeframe as Overlord, nicknamed Destruction of Army Group Centre. Where the Germans got the wrong end of Blitzkrieg.

Decent book by Setve Zaloga in Osprey Publishing.

"Overall the annihilation of Army Group Centre cost the Germans 2,000 tanks and 57,000 other vehicles. German losses are estimated at 300,000 dead, 250,000 wounded, and about 120,000 captured; overall casualties at 670,000. Soviet losses were 60,000 killed, 110,000 wounded, and about 8,000 missing, with 2,957 tanks, 2,447 artillery pieces, and 822 aircraft also lost." from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bagration

Other more or less related sites

http://crookedtimber.org/2004/06/11/operation-bagration/

http://hnn.us/articles/5545.html

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/ref/operation_bagration

http://www.geocities.com/sonzabird/majorops.html


Interesting too, Deception in Op. Bagration
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_3-88_histp.htm

By the way, my avatar is an Order of Kutusov, 1st class, with a bit of photoshop added by me. Kutusov was a colleague of Bagration.

 

You mean i actually have to do some reading?

That's right. In case nobody told you, reading is good for you

 

It is? Damn, never realised. By the way, can you hightail your knowledgable backside over to a new thread on Portugal, we need your opinion there.
Kitty

 

It's not Bag-Ration, it's Bagration, Bah-grah-tzion ! Named after a Russian general in the Napoleonic Wars. The great Red Army offensive in Belarus in June 1944 in the same timeframe as Overlord, nicknamed Destruction of Army Group Centre. Where the Germans got the wrong end of Blitzkrieg.

Decent book by Setve Zaloga in Osprey Publishing.

"Overall the annihilation of Army Group Centre cost the Germans 2,000 tanks and 57,000 other vehicles. German losses are estimated at 300,000 dead, 250,000 wounded, and about 120,000 captured; overall casualties at 670,000. Soviet losses were 60,000 killed, 110,000 wounded, and about 8,000 missing, with 2,957 tanks, 2,447 artillery pieces, and 822 aircraft also lost." from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bagration

Other more or less related sites

http://crookedtimber.org/2004/06/11/operation-bagration/

http://hnn.us/articles/5545.html

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/ref/operation_bagration

http://www.geocities.com/sonzabird/majorops.html


Interesting too, Deception in Op. Bagration
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_3-88_histp.htm

By the way, my avatar is an Order of Kutusov, 1st class, with a bit of photoshop added by me. Kutusov was a colleague of Bagration.

Thank you.

 

First time i saw the name Bagration i instantly had a vision of a shortage of handbags. i need to get out more.

 

It is? Damn, never realised. By the way, can you hightail your knowledgable backside over to a new thread on Portugal, we need your opinion there.
Kitty

Jeez, and I came to this forum to escape my wife! They're all alike!

-----------

Gage, you're welcome

 

I have read alot on these threads people quote books say read this or that...that's fine but what about what you as a poster got out of reading this book or that ? Why you liked or didn't like it? What you agree or disagree about the authors point? Perhaps a review? As I look at this thread I see people treading on rice paper but not really discussing Orders of Battle(why or what composition was important) The Leaders of those actions from small unit to Corp/Korp.
The technological aspects of Axis/Allied weapons. Which was better, worse? Tactic, stategy, roles of organization, logistics,combat effectiveness of said unit types.

One or two items brought up to comment on:twocents:


Here's mine comment on supply or interdiction of supply to Axis/Allies. How did that effect Kursk/Destuction of Armee Gruppe Centre?

 

Simple. I don't even try to defend or justify Soviet morality, inhumanity, etc. I am already entirely aware of that, but I keep it separate from study of military history. I don't necessarily have to like or condone those less agreable facets, so it's no use trying to hit me with that particular type of stone as that will only generate hot air and will sidetrack what would be an interesting topic until a moderator loses patience and locks the thread. If I want to discuss or defend Soviet politics (unlikely), I'll go to the appropriate political section of the forum, here that is a waste of time.

Can I provide an analogy? If I want to discuss the II SS-Panzerkorps at Kursk I certainly can not be expected to go at great lengths about death camps or Gestapo torture. That's not related, that's for another thread, this discussion is purely military.

If we don't have to damn the nazis whenever we discuss Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS military actions in this forum we do we need to jump up foam in the mouth whenever someone speaks about the Red Army? What are we, pavlovian lab test dogs?

Is that ok?
Seems like you have rationalized every possible permutation for my posting a low opinion of the Soviet Army except for the one where I actually believe they were a poor military. Seems like the only way I can hold a position like that, in your eyes, is if I have a bias against them.

I simply think the WWII Soviet philosophy of complete disregard for the poor conscript and the fact that dead solders do not become experienced veterans, speaks volumes toward their quality as an army. It so happens that their philosophy has an immoral aspect to it as well as an unwise aspect but that is either purely coincidental or the fruit of sowing those kinds of seeds.

My suggestion they load soldiers into bomb bays and drop them on the Germans is not that much of a cynical statement in that they really didn't use them much more efficiently by running them at machine guns.

General Patton was a veteran general who not only studied at two military colleges in the US but studied warfare since he was 8 years old. A lifelong military career and this excellent training made him tactically very sound. Contrast that with the fact the Russians killed off their veteran generals from the rabid paranoia of a brutal dictatorship and you have in their place, substandard generals who know very little about war strategy and tactics.

Again the brutality in and over itself was never the primary point of why the Soviets are seen as a poor army but rather it is simply that these things are not conducive to producing a solid army. If pouring a little water in your gas tank does not make your car run better, then pouring a lot won't either. Likewise if you foster poor skills, poor fighting techniques will follow and that was evidenced by their use of "brute force" tactics.

To me, that speaks volumes though it might not be music to your ears. I don't like the SS and Nazis but I am aware that they were some of the best soldiers in the war, so my conclusions are not based on my emotions.

Keeping these things in mind, the "awe" of the Red Army seems to me to be non-sequitur and therefore I don't have the respect for them you do and I couldn't without being fake.

When I look at the Soviets in WWII, I really do think of a very backward people that benefited by weather and the grace and goodwill of the "enemies of their enemy". I can't say ally because that has a connotation that they shared mutual good will. I used the example that if a Commonwealth soldier came upon a US soldier who was injured, he would almost certainly threat him as though he was a wounded member of his own group. I would even expect a soldier from either of these armies to risk their lives to save a soldier from the other. I don't have to ask myself "But what if instead they were a Canadian, or maybe an Australian soldier?" it simply does not matter. Courage is the calling card of free men whose acts are inspired by their appreciation of freedom whose duty is governed by their value of their fellow man. They are not motivated to do "brave" things out of fear their commander will shoot them if they don't. They are subject to acting spontaneously brave, even if they don't know the person they are trying to save, they simply see his uniform and know he is one of theirs because they are truly brother in arms, even if the uniform is different.

You can't part the character of a man from his quality of fighting. They are inseparably linked. Ask sapper why he would walk into a mine field and try to disarm mines knowing they could go off at any time and maim or kill him. Ask him if he did it because he was afraid of his CO. He probably volunteered to be an engineer.

No friend, there are better reasons to fight than fear. The duty that you always hear free soldiers talk about is what drives them to such seemingly irrational behavior, at least from a personal survival point of view. It is simply wrong to accuse me of disrespecting the Soviet army because of contempt for their lack of humanity. The fact is, as I said before, quality and character go hand in hand. Like you said Za, this is purely a military assessment. I would say it if I were a Communist. The Soviets were highly overrated as a military even though they got very little credit in the first place.

No foaming, at the mouth. No expression of hatred, just a simple assessment of what we know as history and what we know about the fundamentals of military techniques. Abundant numbers of men to lose, may help you win, but that is anything but illustrative of a talented military, in fact, to me, it is quite the contrary. I could get rid of a coyote in a corn field by setting it on fire but it does not speak well of my hunting skills.

 

Let us discuss the role of :Народный комиссариат внутренних дел(NKVD) Did the Americans have such units or the British? They certainly played a significant military role as field police. As far as an infamous point before 1941, the NKVD cooperated with the Geheime Staatspolizeiin Poland. A little provocation sharpens the wit and will. My belief is a professional Army would function well without its political(armed) counterpart.

Else we could discuss the role of Material Schlacht as a main concept of Soviet success in the Eastern Campaign.

Einsatzbereit Kamaraden

Ende

 

Let us discuss the role of :Народный комиссариат внутренних дел(NKVD) Did the Americans have such units or the British? They certainly played a significant military role as field police. As far as an infamous point before 1941, the NKVD cooperated with the Geheime Staatspolizeiin Poland. A little provocation sharpens the wit and will. My belief is a professional Army would function well without its political(armed) counterpart.

Else we could discuss the role of Material Schlacht as a main concept of Soviet success in the Eastern Campaign.

Einsatzbereit Kamaraden

Ende

It all depends on what kind of government you have. Not surprisingly, non-democratic countries tend to rely heavily on political armed counterpart, especially during dry times.

 

To me, that speaks volumes though it might not be music to your ears. I don't like the SS and Nazis but I am aware that they were some of the best soldiers in the war, so my conclusions are not based on my emotions.


Maybe Jimbo should read a little more about WW2 once again. He might have known that sub-trained Waffen-SS units were not surprisingly hardly the best soldiers in the war. Or he might tell us more about those impressive Waffen-SS units such as the Handschar, the KarstJaeger, the Dirlewanger, the Kaminski, the Maria-Therese, just to name some of those.
And Im quite sure the way inexperienced German NCOs were commanding their units during the battle of the Bulge was hardly better than what inexperienced Soviet NCOs did during the war.

When I look at the Soviets in WWII, I really do think of a very backward people that benefited by weather and the grace and goodwill of the "enemies of their enemy".

Except that anyone having a minimal knowledge of WW2 would have known that the LL didnt have any major impact until late 1942. And that long before the 1941 winter kicked in, most of the Senior OKH commanders (starting with Halder himself), were aware that Barbarossa might fail and that the OstHeer has been significantly bled during the 1941 summer fights.

 

Seems like you have rationalized every possible permutation for my posting a low opinion of the Soviet Army except for the one where I actually believe they were a poor military. Seems like the only way I can hold a position like that, in your eyes, is if I have a bias against them.

I simply think the WWII Soviet philosophy of complete disregard for the poor conscript and the fact that dead solders do not become experienced veterans, speaks volumes toward their quality as an army. It so happens that their philosophy has an immoral aspect to it as well as an unwise aspect but that is either purely coincidental or the fruit of sowing those kinds of seeds.

My suggestion they load soldiers into bomb bays and drop them on the Germans is not that much of a cynical statement in that they really didn't use them much more efficiently by running them at machine guns.

General Patton was a veteran general who not only studied at two military colleges in the US but studied warfare since he was 8 years old. A lifelong military career and this excellent training made him tactically very sound. Contrast that with the fact the Russians killed off their veteran generals from the rabid paranoia of a brutal dictatorship and you have in their place, substandard generals who know very little about war strategy and tactics.

Again the brutality in and over itself was never the primary point of why the Soviets are seen as a poor army but rather it is simply that these things are not conducive to producing a solid army. If pouring a little water in your gas tank does not make your car run better, then pouring a lot won't either. Likewise if you foster poor skills, poor fighting techniques will follow and that was evidenced by their use of "brute force" tactics.

To me, that speaks volumes though it might not be music to your ears. I don't like the SS and Nazis but I am aware that they were some of the best soldiers in the war, so my conclusions are not based on my emotions.

Keeping these things in mind, the "awe" of the Red Army seems to me to be non-sequitur and therefore I don't have the respect for them you do and I couldn't without being fake.

When I look at the Soviets in WWII, I really do think of a very backward people that benefited by weather and the grace and goodwill of the "enemies of their enemy". I can't say ally because that has a connotation that they shared mutual good will. I used the example that if a Commonwealth soldier came upon a US soldier who was injured, he would almost certainly threat him as though he was a wounded member of his own group. I would even expect a soldier from either of these armies to risk their lives to save a soldier from the other. I don't have to ask myself "But what if instead they were a Canadian, or maybe an Australian soldier?" it simply does not matter. Courage is the calling card of free men whose acts are inspired by their appreciation of freedom whose duty is governed by their value of their fellow man. They are not motivated to do "brave" things out of fear their commander will shoot them if they don't. They are subject to acting spontaneously brave, even if they don't know the person they are trying to save, they simply see his uniform and know he is one of theirs because they are truly brother in arms, even if the uniform is different.

You can't part the character of a man from his quality of fighting. They are inseparably linked. Ask sapper why he would walk into a mine field and try to disarm mines knowing they could go off at any time and maim or kill him. Ask him if he did it because he was afraid of his CO. He probably volunteered to be an engineer.

No friend, there are better reasons to fight than fear. The duty that you always hear free soldiers talk about is what drives them to such seemingly irrational behavior, at least from a personal survival point of view. It is simply wrong to accuse me of disrespecting the Soviet army because of contempt for their lack of humanity. The fact is, as I said before, quality and character go hand in hand. Like you said Za, this is purely a military assessment. I would say it if I were a Communist. The Soviets were highly overrated as a military even though they got very little credit in the first place.

No foaming, at the mouth. No expression of hatred, just a simple assessment of what we know as history and what we know about the fundamentals of military techniques. Abundant numbers of men to lose, may help you win, but that is anything but illustrative of a talented military, in fact, to me, it is quite the contrary. I could get rid of a coyote in a corn field by setting it on fire but it does not speak well of my hunting skills.
A thorough and expansive post jimbo, and without getting personal or emotional allow me to refute aome of your points.

First of all the Russians were not only fighting for a Communist Regime.
Stalin was far too astute to reckon that the Russian Peoples would fight to support the Communist Regime. If you ever look at the Soviet Propoganda of the era, especially from Sept 1941 onwards it invokes the Russian People to defend Mother Russia. Imperial Generals were invoked on posters and the Slogan “Mother Russia” was used ad nauseum as the rallying point against the Germans. I wont even try to suggest that the Soviets did not use Fear and intimidation to try and motivate their forces, the desertion numbers at the beginning show that it was a failure. However, once the Russian Soldiers found out what they could expect at the hands of the Germans, and especially the SS, they put up much more of a fight nad desertion rates dropped off. Indeed the German invasion of Russia was a war of extermination as opposed to the war in the West. The germans planned to wipe Russia off the face of the Earth. Russia was fighting for its very existence. Don’t believe me? Compare the experiences of Western POW’s to the treatment of Russian POWs. There in fact is no comparison. Russian POWs were often starved to death if not executed first. Because the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention, the Nazis felt that they could treat the Russians as they wanted to, like sub-human animals.
So in fact there was more to the Russians being motivated than just NKVD officers standing with pistols behind Human Waves, although that did happen too.

To answer the assertion that the Red Army was a backward ungainly beast that relied Solely on “Human Wves” I refer to an article on the BBC website bbc.co.uk:
The central question of the German-Soviet war is why, after two years of defeats, and the loss of more than five million men and two-thirds of the industrial capacity of the country, the Red Army was able to blunt, then drive back, the German attack.
The idea that the USSR had limitless manpower, despite its heavy losses, is inadequate as an answer. Germany and her allies also possessed a large population, and added to it the peoples of the captured Soviet areas - men and women who were forced to work for the German army or were shipped back to work in the Reich. Soviet armies were always desperately short of men.
Above all, Soviet tactics in 1941-2 were extremely wasteful of manpower. If the Red Army had continued to fight the same way, it would simply have sustained escalating losses for little gain.
Nor did the USSR enjoy an advantage in economic resources. After the German attack, Soviet steel production fell to eight million tons in 1942, while German production was 28 million tons. In the same year, Soviet coal output was 75 million tons, while German output was 317 million. The USSR nevertheless out-produced Germany in the quantity (though seldom in the quality) of most major weapons, from this much smaller industrial base.
The impressive production of weapons was achieved by turning the whole of the remaining Soviet area into what Stalin called 'a single armed camp', focusing all efforts on military production and extorting maximum labour from a workforce whose only guarantee of food was to turn up at the factory and work the arduous 12-hour shifts. Without Lend-Lease aid, however, from the United States and Britain, both of whom supplied a high proportion of food and raw materials for the Soviet war effort, the high output of weapons would still not have been possible.
The chief explanation lies not in resources, which Germany was more generously supplied with than the Soviet Union, during the two central years of the war before American and British economic power was fully exerted. It lies instead in the remarkable reform of the Red Army and the Russian air force, undertaken slowly in 1942.
Every area of Soviet military life was examined and changes introduced. The army established the equivalent of the heavily armoured German Panzer divisions, and tank units were better organised - thanks to the introduction of radios. Soviet army tactics and intelligence-gathering were also overhauled.
Camouflage, surprise and misinformation were brilliantly exploited to keep the German army in the dark about major Soviet intentions. The air force was subjected to effective central control and improved communications, so that it could support the Soviet army in the same way as the Luftwaffe backed up German forces.
The Red Army was fortunate that in 1942 Stalin finally decided to play a less prominent role in defence planning and discovered in a young Russian general, Georgi Zhukov, a remarkable deputy whose brusque, no-nonsense style of command, and intuitive operational sense, were indispensable in making the Red Army a better battlefield force. The Communist Party also accepted the need to give the Red Army greater flexibility in fighting the war, and in the autumn of 1942 scaled down the role of political commissars attached to the armed forces.

So whilst your assertion that the Soviets should have dropped their men out of planes on the Germans might have a bit of credibility in 1941 you might need to re-evaluate that for the Red Army from 1942 onwards.
As for this army that had performed so badly, by Dec 1941 the Wehrmacht had lost 28.7% of its strength and not all of these were due to “General Winter”!!! The Summer Battles had cost the Wehrmacht dearly.
You have also stated that most of Russia’s Veteran Generals were killed off in the purges of 1936-39 and that in its place were put “substandard Generals” who knew very little about strategy and tactics. You are correct in this also but this is only true if you discuss the Red Army in 1941-42. These Generals were either replaced, captured or Killed (and not just by Stalin) and the new breed of Generals were much better and had a thorough grounding in strategy and tactics. They had first hand knowledge because they had just stopped the most deadly fighting force the world had ever seen in its tracks!!! Yes they had Generals such as Kirponos, Timoshenko and the “Original” Marshal Budenny who used to favour, like Patton, the wearing of pistols by his side. There the comparison ends!! But read up on Konev, Vassilevsky, Rokossovskii and tell me that these men had no concept of Tactics and Strategy. I look forward to a discussion of the battles that they fought with you to refute my claims.
You say that you cant part the Character from the quality of the man and that the red Army fought under the constant threat of the NKVD. Well what about the Wehrmacht and the Field Police or the Einsatzgruppen? Disobey an order in the German Army and you would face the same outcome as the Russians and in 1944-45 the same happened to the Wehrmacht as happened to the Red Army in 1941. The number of men killed by their political armies were huge in Germany yet you don’t bring this up? You think that the Russians had no character so I’d like to know where you got this assertion from. Not all Russians fought through fear as I have stated above. You are free to dispute my claims about this. I stand quite firm in my convictions on this.
You have also stated that although you don’t like the SS or Nazis they were some of the best Soldiers in the World so you conclusions are not based on emotions. You have debated with me on this forum regarding Russia and you have wondered why it is that I defend an “evil” regime. In many of your posts you have not discussed the military aspects of the Communist Regime you concentrate on the Political and social aspects. I’m not starting a political discussion but I do believe that your posts are biased because of how you view Stalin and his cohorts. If you think the SS are some of the best soldiers in the world then have a look at the attrition rates of the SS divisions and you will see that they are considerably higher than that of the Wehrmacht. Now some of this is explained that they were sent to every breakthrough spot, every place that was in imminent danger. However in the beginning they did disastrously and in the Battle of France, an attack by French Armour caused a route in SS Totenkopf. You know why the SS divisions were so respected by the Western Allies? Because they had spent over 3 years fighting in Russia!!!!! German Veterans are not scathing of the Russians fighting ability, indeed anything but. As Exxley has pointed out the amount of “Elite” SS divisions were few, probably confined to the Following:
SS Leibstandarte
SS Das Reich
SS Nordland
SS Hitler Jugend
SS Frundsberg
SS Hohenstaufen
SS Nord
SS wiking
Now that is 8 out of 38 known SS formations which is about 21% of its total strength. Not very high is it? Now those 8 were particularly good and yes I would class them as elite. But there is no way I would say that just because a soldier is SS that it makes them elite.

Anyway I have refuted enough.

 

Problem is they've gone off into such technicalities i have no idea what they are talking about. Jimbo has reverted to long posts again, and i am very lost. Please guys, i'm a stressed out blonde. i need some explanations. Please consider me the wide eyed brat sat listening to you with no kowledge of what you are talking about. Throw me the occassional bone to chew on, huh?
Kitty

 

Ah sure hopefully it will breed discussion. I have no problem discussing details of the War rather than just an overview which is what myself and Jimbo tend to do!!

However Mosquito, if you have any questions about the Eastern Front I will try and answer you in a short lucid post if I can. Ask away girl!!

 

Thanks GH, i'll toss them in as and when i need something clarifying. Currently contacting Ladybird books to see if they do a pretty picture book on the Eastern Front Campaign.

 

Yes as with any subject Ladybird do some excellent books. Their Biography of Heydrich and their insightful picture book on the Caucasus campaign are worth a look!!! LOL! (This is a tongue in cheek post!!)