Ashes said:
G'day fellas.
Just a few thoughts.
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Well, that doesn't even begin to compare to the numerical carnage suffered by the Soviets in Barbarossa, so I'd say Glantz is probably wrong. Additionally, the USSR had a very stacked deck in their favor by 1944.
The numerical advantage held by the USSR in 1941 was insane. Germany success was as unlikely as Lennox Lewis getting is butt kicked by a 70 year old lady, but it happened anyway. Bagatration demonstrated that the Red Army had learned execute mechanized modern warfare superbly, but its still Lennox Lewis beating the crap out of a 70 year old lady and not as impressive IMHO.
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Gee, I dont know about those statements, godofthunder.
First you seem to be comparing the casualties of the whole Eastern front war with one campaign, then to say that one of the foremost western experts on the Eastern front is wrong, is a pretty big call.
As for the insane Russian numerical advantage in 1941, I've found the following figures.....
22 June 1941
Soviet: 2,680,000 on the front.
Axis: 3,117,000 Germans+500,000 Finns+150,000 Romanians (in fact around 350,000) so a total of 3,967,000. To these forces the Hungarian and Slovak troops added after 26 June 1941.
11 September 1941
Soviet: 3,463,000 on the front.
Axis: 3,382,000 Germans+500,000 Finns+150,000 Romanians (in fact around 306,000) so a total of 4,188,000 plus the Hungarian, Italian and Slovak expeditionary corps.
1 November 1941
Soviet: 2,200,000 on the front.
Axis: 2,867,000 Germans+500,000 Finns+150,000 Romanians (finally a closer figure to the real one: 62,000 on the front+103,000 as occupation forces in Trans-Dnestra) so a total of 3,532,000 plus the Hungarian, Italian and Slovak expeditionary corps.
1 December 1941*
Soviet: 4,197,000 on the front.
Axis: 2,767,000 Germans+500,000 Finns+140,000 Romanians (60,000 on the front+112,000 as occupation forces in Trans-Dnestra) so a total of 3,439,000 plus the Hungarian, Italian and Slovak expeditionary corps.
*From here on, the Red Army had a continuous numerical advantage over the Wehrmacht and its smaller allies.
Plus the Russians had several Million men on the Manchurin front, untill called back by Stalin. Note the increase from Nov. [which was the low point for the Russians] to Dec.
The problem with the official numbers for the Red Army is simple:
The USSR lied. We do not have a reliable source for the numbers on the Red Army. Strange at it may seem, the German tally was the best resource for guessing their actual numbers.
In 1941, the Wehrmacht enterned the USSR with a maximum of 4,000 tanks, 4,000 combat aircraft and roughly 3,500,000 in manpower. In that year, they accounted for at least 6,000,000 Russian POW's, a minimum of 17,000 confirmed tank kills and a minimum of 12,000 confirmed combat aircraft kills. Some tallies of POW are more towards the 9,000,000 man mark, but those may be counting a full year period and not just 1941. Still, 6,000,000 is the minimum number for 1941 alone. Those are Red Army regulars and that does not represent the full total of for the Red Army deployed on the Eastern front throughout 1941 combat. Yes Stalin was an idiot. He didn't deploy his forces accordingly when his intelligence pointed towards a German invasion, so the number of forces right at the border was far from sufficient. That doesn't change the fact that in 1941, the Red Army held
overwhelming superiority in every category but one: Leadership. Well, they did have more experience at winning than the Red Army too.
Estimated numbers on the Red Army as of the beginning of Operation Barbossa: 14,000,000 in manpower, 21,000 tanks, 15,000 combat aircraft. Some of that was deployed to counter operations by the Japanese, but the vast bulk of that force was deployed in the East and the Germans ripped it to shreds with a much much tinier force. The Germans failed to destroy the whole Red Army 1941 for simple enough reasons: There was too much to destroy and it was deployed over such a gigantic area. It was probably logistically impossible to completely destroy the Red Army in 1941. Even if Germany would have done it right, they'd have been a few years minimum in mopping up actions.
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Mars alone saw the complete waste of tanks, men and equipment. Operational effectiveness of the Red Army was diminished each and every time they took staggerly disproportionate losses in both men and equipment.
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I'm not sure it was a complete waste, granted it was a serious setback for the Russians, but if they didn't attack, there was a possibility that Army group center could have syphoned off men for Stalingrad.
And as I said, the Germans took quite a battering too.
While causing heavy Soviet casualties, the German divisions themselves were fought to a frazzle. It was no coincidence that several months later Model asked for and received permission to abandon the Rzhev salient. He and his army could ill afford another such victory.
Perhaps it tied up divisions, but Army Group Center's job was to stay right where they were. The important point of it was that the catastrophic losses the Russians suffered in Mars were unnecessarily high. Rather than readapting or redirecting forces, Zhukov decided to throw wave after wave at the same entry points: where those men, tanks and units were torn to pieces. Some of the tactics were sound at first, but once your enemy knows where your attacks are coming and has deployed, reinforces and turned those attack points into bottlenecks where your forces can be mowed down easily ... a decent commander would redirect his forces and attack at other points on the enemy line. Zhukov didn't. He just kept pouring men into killing traps even after it was obvious to anyone than the Germans weren't about to break and it was a complete waste. That makes him look pretty stupid, despite some brilliant successes later in the war.
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Your making the assumption that Patton was an idiot where he wasn't. Far, far from it.
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Perhaps I didn't explain that very well.
I meant that Patton was almost certifiable, a few cans short of a six pack, a sandwich short of a picnic, a.... well you get my drift.
He sincerely believed that he lived as a warrior through the ages as a viking, as a Roman leigonaire in Ceasers terrible 10th Legion, died on the plains of Troy, and fell in the battle of Crecy in the 100 years war.
Also from the extract below it's obvious he wasn't the sort of person that you could admire......
Right, my point was a simple one: He wouldn't have fallen for an encirclement. I know he was an odd duck, but so were many other successful leaders. Winston Churhill is a great example. And by the way, Patton's men
absolutely did admire him. Not universally, but that is the lot of any military leader.
"He was a successful general, but he was also a racist of the rawest and most vicious kind. His own writings show that he was convinced of the superiority of Northwestern Europeans, except the Irish, and was convinced of the inferiority of nonwhites. He also hated Jews and called Holocaust survivors "subhumans". While such views were widespread in the officer corps in the 1920's and '30's, Patton carried them to an extreme which hindered his ability to effectively act in the occupation of Germany. He was so far over the edge that you would say that he probably believed in Nordic superiority more than most of Hitler's generals did. One good source for the history of antiSemitism in the Army is a book called "The 'Jewish Threat' ". It is quite a shocker. While he served his country bravely, we should never forget that indirectly attitudes such as those held by Patton and Lindbergh might have helped to prevent America from confronting Hitler or offering timely assistance to those he would go on to murder. "
It might interest you to note that the United States of America was a very antiSemitic place prior to WW2. In 1939, a survey was taken in New York asking "What is the greatest threat to the security of the United States?" The number 1 answer? Jews. Not Germany. Not Japan. Jews. That doesn't excuse his being a bigot, but lets be honest. Most of the world was full of bigots before WW2.
....... But this doesn't mean he wasn't a great commander.
Exactly, it doesn't make him any less of a commander.
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Sorry, but I have a very hard time respecting a man who had such small a regard for the lives of his men.
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Yes, it would have been great if the Whermacht could have been beaten without the huge sacrifices of the Russian soldiers, and perhaps others could have done it with lower casualties, but I dont think that many commanders in history didn't sacrifice their men at sometime for one reason or another, even Lee at Gettysburg sacrificed Pickets division in a vain attack on the Union lines.
Anyway fellas, i'm not claiming that Zhukov was some sort of military genius, just happened to be man of the hour when Russia needed one when they were on their knees.
Zhukov had a very good grasp of mobile warfare. His weakness was making unnecessary sacrifices because he often failed to rethink his strategy midway through an operation. That is a bad characteristic for a battlefield commander in any age of history. So is Zhukov's tendency to not seem to care about the lives of his men.
And the most important commander of the war IMHO.
This statement is one that I already agreed with. Its also extremely obvious. WW2 was won or lost on the Eastern Front, so "most important allied commander" can't be anything but Russian.
Also, dont you think that the c-in-c's get too much lime light?
They set up the plans, but it's the field commanders, and the poor old foot slogger that do the dirty work to make them succeed.
100% agree. Its one reason that I really like Guderian as a commander -- he was a pure battlefield commander and one of the best ever in history.
Bye the way, godofthunder who did you vote as the best Allied commander?
Mannerheim
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