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USSR had only 25 years to prepare for the war. It's very small time considering that Revolution of 1917 and following 4 years long Civil War almost destroyed industrial capacity, exterminated and expelled millions of the former elite and professional classes (who dominated military, engineering & industry, education & civil government). In essence, Stalin' USSR had to rebuild it's educated class from peasant&workers scratch, reinvent lost technologies and know hows, rebuild military education & training using little more than poorly educated "peasant stock". I essence Soviet Russia destroyed its class system in 1917 just to spend the next 24 years to frantically reinvent and to rebuild it. Industrial societies are deeply class based societies, it doesn't matter how you call them, capitalist or socialist.
Just imagine USA losing 80% of its educated classes and military experts. Just imagine that 200 years long West Point tradition is interrupted and erased. Could American trailer park dwellers accomplish what Stalin' Russia accomplished under these circumstances? Something like winning a war on the first class Industrial power with uninterrupted military, industrial and educational traditions? How many casualties it would take?
Just compare Soviet casualties to the Russian WWI casualties. The Great War . Resources . WWI Casualties and Deaths | PBS
Russian WWI casualties are high mainly because of the large number of prisoners. In other words, tzarist army refused to fight despite being led by the professional nobles (who had way too many chances to prove their ineptitude). Stalin' army fought despite the gigantic losses. Russian tsarist army disintegrated after sustaining relatively mild (as for WWI) loses. That's major difference.
BTW, WWI Romania is absolute champ as far as casualties go. Close to 45% of the Romanian Army were KIA. Stalin' army fared better than that.
Germany was not uninterrupted. The Treaty of Versailles all but took away the Germany Army and Navy for about 15 years. Between the end of WW1 and Hitler's rise to power, Germany was militarily impotent. Their industrial base was weakened by Versailles with the loss of key industrial regions of their country. Alsace-Lorraine was transferred back to France. The Rhineland was a buffer zone. Germany found ways to sneak around the strict treaty provisions by building tanks, aircraft, and weapons in the Soviet Union, but you cannot convince me that their military did not suffer during that time. When Hitler rose to power, he had to rebuild the military nearly scratch. Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, but that was not until about 1934 or so. It took until 1935 for Germany to re-militarize the Rhineland. It took another 4 years before Germany went to war. This was all part of Hitler's clever plan. He know Germany was not ready to go to war before 1939 because he had to build up his military's strength. Even in 1940 when Germany invaded France, 50% of the German Army was still using horse drawn wagons to pull artillery and supplies.
When Hitler invaded the USSR in 1941, Germany still had not caught up with the Soviets in military strength. Germany relied on superior tactics, logistics, communication, speed, quality of troops/commanders, and most importantly the element of surprise to achieve rapid success against the Soviets in the opening months of Operation Barbarossa. Germany also relied on several other countries to add divisions to the invasion force. I think at least 25% of the Axis invasions force were Italians, Fins, and Romanians.
The Soviets had 25 years to build up their military and had the largest military in the world. Yet their military man for man was of poor quality. The Soviets had a larger industrial capacity than Germany did, but their supply/logistics system was inferior. Stalin also purged his officer corps 2 years before the invasion, so the Soviet military did suffer a big snag there. But in terms of overall buildup, the Soviets had plenty of troops and eventually overwhelmed the Germans with numbers instead of quality.
Why did the Soviets fight so hard in WW2? Because of the Nazi's. The Soviets knew the Nazi's were coming to exterminate them whether they fight or not. The Soviets had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you know the enemy takes no prisoners, you're options are to fight to the death or be exterminated at a concentration camp. Sounds like an easy choice to me.
But in terms of overall buildup, the Soviets had plenty of troops and eventually overwhelmed the Germans with numbers instead of quality.
Troops yes, but that T-34... just finished watching some clip of German tankers talking about having to go up against the T-34. They were more than impressed.
There is huge difference between career military, workers and engineers just idling because of the smaller army size and decreased industrial outputs. Quite another thing when a country simply doesn't have substantial numbers of the educated classes to man professional military and industrial production. Basic literacy rates were abysmally low in the pre-Soviet Russia, 28% of the general population were literate. Civil war decreased that number by expelling and/or eliminating millions of the educated nobles and professionals.
Tsarist Russia was lagging Europe (especially Germany and Britain) in industrial development as of 1914. That was one of the main reason of disintegration of the Russian army during WWI. Russian army lacked heavy weaponry in the numbers required to wage a massive war, Russian infantry faced Germans armed with heavy guns it could not counteract. Resulting carnage was customarily explained by centuries old despise of the Russian nobility towards the lower classes of which the infantry mass was made of. Revolution and Civil war almost completely destroyed Russian industrial production and annihilated people involved in engineering and industry. Plight of post WWI Germany doesn't stand near to those losses.
Nothing short of miraculous, Stalin's Russia managed to manufacture world class weaponry as of 1941-1945 (paid in blood & death for). Unfortunately, it did not manage to produce sufficient numbers of people capable of utilizing that weaponry effectively. Simple lack of people with basic mechanical knowledge and rudimentary driving skills were responsible for enormous losses of Soviet equipment. Worse yet, USSR unlike Germany simply didn't have enough of capable soldiers to institute NCO corps. Soviet sergeants were not match in training and responsibilities to the German unteroffiziers. This lack of capable nco's in the front line demanded massive training of the "commissioned" (sorta) officers having some sort of rudimentary military knowledge. If that soviet lieutenant was killed or wounded (most of those 18-25 y.o. "lieutenants" and yesterday's HS graduates were in fact KIA), military efficiency of soviet platoons and detachments was decimated or non existent. Not so in the German front line where commissioned officers were an exception not the rule. German NCOs manned the front line, many German soldiers could lead instead of a fallen NCO.
Senior officer corps was not in much better shape at earlier stages of the war. It was typical for Soviets to "extract" senior leadership from encirclements leaving soldiers and lower ranking officers to their fate. Think about it, soviets rescued senior officers who were partially or fully responsible for military defeat and loses of tens and hundreds thousands of troops so they could be reassigned to lead another division, corp or an army. Obviously, the only explanation for this, Soviets didn't have anybody else, that's all what they had to work with.
Quote:
The Soviets had a larger industrial capacity than Germany did
That's simply not true. As of 1914, Germany was #1 European Industrial power. Even defeat in WWI didn't change that, in 1928 German industrial output was 22% greater than that in 1913. Soviet Russia was in the industrial shambles circa 1928, there was little to compare with the Tsarist Russia industrial output in 1913. It took Stalin's forced industrialization, massive human losses and Western industrial expertise for Soviets to develop substantial industrial capacity just in time for WWII. If you'd check the numbers, German industrial industrial output during WWII was greater than that of Stalin' Russia in 1941, 42, 43, 44 only in 1945 German industrial output was lagging a little bit behind that of USSR.
Last edited by RememberMee; 01-24-2013 at 01:11 AM..
Worse yet, USSR unlike Germany simply didn't have enough of capable soldiers to institute NCO corps. Soviet sergeants were not match in training and responsibilities to the German unteroffiziers.
And I would imagine worser (amazing my spell check recognizes worser) that the the political apparatchiks weren't very helpful in that regard.
There is huge difference between career military, workers and engineers just idling because of the smaller army size and decreased industrial outputs. Quite another thing when a country simply doesn't have substantial numbers of the educated classes to man professional military and industrial production. Basic literacy rates were abysmally low in the pre-Soviet Russia, 28% of the general population were literate. Civil war decreased that number by expelling and/or eliminating millions of the educated nobles and professionals.
Tsarist Russia was lagging Europe (especially Germany and Britain) in industrial development as of 1914. That was one of the main reason of disintegration of the Russian army during WWI. Russian army lacked heavy weaponry in the numbers required to wage a massive war, Russian infantry faced Germans armed with heavy guns it could not counteract. Resulting carnage was customarily explained by centuries old despise of the Russian nobility towards the lower classes of which the infantry mass was made of. Revolution and Civil war almost completely destroyed Russian industrial production and annihilated people involved in engineering and industry. Plight of post WWI Germany doesn't stand near to those losses.
Nothing short of miraculous, Stalin's Russia managed to manufacture world class weaponry as of 1941-1945 (paid in blood & death for). Unfortunately, it did not manage to produce sufficient numbers of people capable of utilizing that weaponry effectively. Simple lack of people with basic mechanical knowledge and rudimentary driving skills were responsible for enormous losses of Soviet equipment. Worse yet, USSR unlike Germany simply didn't have enough of capable soldiers to institute NCO corps. Soviet sergeants were not match in training and responsibilities to the German unteroffiziers. This lack of capable nco's in the front line demanded massive training of the "commissioned" (sorta) officers having some sort of rudimentary military knowledge. If that soviet lieutenant was killed or wounded (most of those 18-25 y.o. "lieutenants" and yesterday's HS graduates were in fact KIA), military efficiency of soviet platoons and detachments was decimated or non existent. Not so in the German front line where commissioned officers were an exception not the rule. German NCOs manned the front line, many German soldiers could lead instead of a fallen NCO.
Senior officer corps was not in much better shape at earlier stages of the war. It was typical for Soviets to "extract" senior leadership from encirclements leaving soldiers and lower ranking officers to their fate. Think about it, soviets rescued senior officers who were partially or fully responsible for military defeat and loses of tens and hundreds thousands of troops so they could be reassigned to lead another division, corp or an army. Obviously, the only explanation for this, Soviets didn't have anybody else, that's all what they had to work with.
That's simply not true. As of 1914, Germany was #1 European Industrial power. Even defeat in WWI didn't change that, in 1928 German industrial output was 22% greater than that in 1913. Soviet Russia was in the industrial shambles circa 1928, there was little to compare with the Tsarist Russia industrial output in 1913. It took Stalin's forced industrialization, massive human losses and Western industrial expertise for Soviets to develop substantial industrial capacity just in time for WWII. If you'd check the numbers, German industrial industrial output during WWII was greater than that of Stalin' Russia in 1941, 42, 43, 44 only in 1945 German industrial output was lagging a little bit behind that of USSR.
You seem to be focusing on the outbreak of WW1 which was 25 years before the outbreak of WW2. Yes, the Soviets were in bad shape in the 1920's. They began rapidly building up their military and industrial base under Stalin's regime.
When I said the Soviets had a greater industrial capacity than Germany, I meant over time during WW2. I did not mean before WW2 or even the outbreak of WW2. I meant that in a lengthy war of attrition, the Soviets had a larger capacity over time to out-produce the Germans than the other way around. Germany's window of victory was small. They needed to win the war during the first 2 years or else defeat was imminent. This is because the longer the war dragged on, the more it favored the Soviets.
I do know in WW2 the Soviets produced more tanks and artillery then the Germans by alot. Just look at the tank #'s in early 1945 as the Soviets could field about 11,000 tanks and armored vehicles to the Germans much smaller numbers of about 2500 I believe on the eastern front. It is amazing how the Soviets actually moved their complete factories to the east away from the attacking Germans and still produced what they did after doing that. And the Germans still produced a good bit for being bombed like crazy the last year of the war. Heck by mid to late 1944 the US 8th air force alone could send 2000 bombers and 1000 fighters on a single mission and British Bomber Comand could send about 1600 bombers out on a mission. And thats not counting the 15th US air force in Italy with heavy bombers as they could put just over 1000 heavy bombers up on a single mission with about 600 fighters. It makes me wonder how Germany produced as much as they did up to almost the end of the war. Ron
You seem to be focusing on the outbreak of WW1 which was 25 years before the outbreak of WW2. Yes, the Soviets were in bad shape in the 1920's. They began rapidly building up their military and industrial base under Stalin's regime.
When I said the Soviets had a greater industrial capacity than Germany, I meant over time during WW2. I did not mean before WW2 or even the outbreak of WW2. I meant that in a lengthy war of attrition, the Soviets had a larger capacity over time to out-produce the Germans than the other way around. Germany's window of victory was small. They needed to win the war during the first 2 years or else defeat was imminent. This is because the longer the war dragged on, the more it favored the Soviets.
Check the numbers of industrial production during WWII. As I said, the numbers clearly show that during the war German industrial output was greater than that of Soviets for 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944. Think, Germany occupied entire European continent (except a few states), even "neutral" Sweden, Spain, Switzerland did contribute quite a bit to the German war efforts. USSR industrial capacity was not a match to the combined European capacity. Remember that Germany occupied and destroyed industrial centers of Ukraine and Southern Russia in 1941 and 1942. That's a huge chunk of the Soviet industrial production.
If not for the allied help, if not for Germany waging WWII on two fronts, if not for Allied carpet bombing raids, combined European industrial output would have crushed USSR.
I do know in WW2 the Soviets produced more tanks and artillery then the Germans by alot. Just look at the tank #'s in early 1945 as the Soviets could field about 11,000 tanks and armored vehicles to the Germans much smaller numbers of about 2500 I believe on the eastern front. It is amazing how the Soviets actually moved their complete factories to the east away from the attacking Germans and still produced what they did after doing that. And the Germans still produced a good bit for being bombed like crazy the last year of the war. Heck by mid to late 1944 the US 8th air force alone could send 2000 bombers and 1000 fighters on a single mission and British Bomber Comand could send about 1600 bombers out on a mission. And thats not counting the 15th US air force in Italy with heavy bombers as they could put just over 1000 heavy bombers up on a single mission with about 600 fighters. It makes me wonder how Germany produced as much as they did up to almost the end of the war. Ron
Now we compare the production numbers of Ford Focus and Porsche. German tanks, guns, aircraft, etc. were more complex and technologically involved. The numbers mean little. Soviets embraced the paradigm of quantity having quality of its own (and they got that right). Germans embraced paradigm of more quality on the expense of quantity (and they got it wrong). It's this technological complexity and crumbling European supply chain that did Germans in. However, even during 1945 German industrial and research capacity was sufficient to manufacture jets and rockets, something that took Stalin' Russia 5 more years to accomplish.
Now we compare the production numbers of Ford Focus and Porsche. German tanks, guns, aircraft, etc. were more complex and technologically involved. The numbers mean little. Soviets embraced the paradigm of quantity having quality of its own (and they got that right). Germans embraced paradigm of more quality on the expense of quantity (and they got it wrong). It's this technological complexity and crumbling European supply chain that did Germans in. However, even during 1945 German industrial and research capacity was sufficient to manufacture jets and rockets, something that took Stalin' Russia 5 more years to accomplish.
I do agree as I was just stating some #'s of what they produced. I feel that the Germans and Soviets both did a good job producing what they did under the circumstances they had to endure. I always felt Germany's one problem was they built to complex of quaility machines instead of doing like the Soviets and the USA did in building simple low maintaince machines like the Shermans and T-34's. Not as good as the German Panthers but the Soviets and Americans could built 3 times as many to overcome them in sheer numbers. Sometimes I feel if Hitler had not wasted so much time on his "wonder weapons" and just stuck to building alot more of what they already were building they would have made out better. Ron
As you can see in 1938-1940 the Soviets actually held a slight edge in GDP versus Germany. This edge was wiped out in 1941 and it would not be until 1945 that Soviet GDP would once again beat Germany's. For much of that time it was, for all intents and purposes a "one front war" with the major Allied bombing campaigns not beginning until 1944 and even then they had minimal impact on German production.
The reasons that the Soviets "out produced" Germany is tied to the fact that Germany never really moved their economy into a full wartime footing until Speer took over towards the beginning of 1942. Even then it took until mid-1943 for his changes and management to really be seen in wartime production and German war output peaked in mid/late-1944. When Speer took over Germany was still producing civilian consumer goods at nearly the same levels they were pre-war. One interesting side statistic showing Germany's lack of true economic mobilization is that Germany produced 15,000 tons of wallpaper between 1941 and 1945 (Yes Frau, we understand your house was bombed, but that beautiful floral print you ordered is now in). Further Germany made almost no attempts to integrate women into the industrial workforce and relied heavily upon slave labor in many industries. So, while the German economy was much larger then the overall Soviet economy by 1942, Germany was still not using all of their economic muscle to prosecute the war. By contrast, virtually the entire Soviet economy was dedicated to nothing but producing material for the war.
On the tank/AFV/self-propelled gun (aka "tanks") front there is another interesting story. Here is the total production by Germany and the Soviets:
Soviets: 105,251
Germany: 67,429
However, the more telling figure is the one that looks at the size of the main armament used. This is the same number, but only counting "tanks" with a 75mm or larger gun:
Soviets: 92,595
Germany: 43,920
So, while Germany produced only 35% less "tanks" overall, they produced 53% less tanks featuring effective main weaponry. The disparity in artilley is even greater with 516,000 for the Soviets vs. 159,000 for the Germans, but much of that had to do with doctrinal use of artillery and anti-tank guns and how they were distributed in the forces. The Soviets largely relied upon "weight of fire" with their artillery while the Germans relied more on accuracy. Given how much greater the Germans feared accurate American artillery to Soviet massed artillery, we can probably call that one a wash.
Tank production was also heavily influenced by each sides doctrinal use of tanks. The Germans started the war with two separate concepts for the role of tanks. Lighter tanks like the PzII and PzIII were what made up the main component of armored columns, they were lighter tanks most with only 37mm guns that were designed to exploit breakthroughs and move rapidly while engaging enemy armor. The second role was for heavier tanks like the PzIV which were primarily used as infantry support and mounted a short-barreled 75mm gun primarily for firing HE rounds.
The Soviets in the late 1930's took a different track based on their experience fighting the Japanese and chose to build a "jack of all trades" tank, the T-34. They then supplemented this with heavy tanks like the KV series that were designed as breakthrough/siege tanks, heavily armed and armored, but slow. Early Soviet tank design, unlike German design, took into account the lessons of the Spanish Civil War which proved the necessities of heavier armor.
As the war progressed the flaws in German armored doctrine relative to the Soviets and the tanks fielded became apparent. The German PzIII's which were intended to engage Soviet tanks were completely useless against the T-34's. The PzIV had better suvivability, but it's main gun being short-barrelled was insufficient at anything but close range. Thus begins the Germans race to build tanks that could counter the T-34 and KV-1.
The PzIV became the only really viable existing platform to use at that point. The German's also needed a better main gun and started looking at their in development 75mm infantry anti-tank guns to adopt to the tanks. The issue was that the PzIV turret could only accept so much gun, so changes had to be made that lowered the overall effectiveness, but managed to get the job done against early T-34's at normal combat ranges. Armor was also another major issue and combined with the heavier turret and gun meant that compromises needed to be made throughout the design process as there was only so much weight the PzIV chassis could handle. What this all led to was a near constant revision and updating process as the Germans attempted to make the PzIV chassis viable. Do to all of the running changes and upgrades to respond to battlefield conditions it was not until the Ausf.J variant introduced in 1944 that the Germans started to make a serious effort on simplifying production to increase output. Of course, the "J" ended up being a less capable machine then the "H" variants as many of the advances had to be removed or simplified to speed production.
These issues were the fundamental reason that the Germans spent so much time on the Tiger and Panther tanks. The Tiger had first been theorized and sketched out in 1937, but didn't match German doctrine of the time and was passed over. This early design lead advantage made that theorized platform the easiest to put into production once the Germans realized the need for a heavy tank to counter Soviet armor. The rushed production meant that early Tiger's were basically prototypes and the design suffered appropriately and production was slowed do to constant revisions and the overall complexity of the tank.
By contrast the Panther was a tank specifically built to counter Soviet armor from the outset and was developed with heavy input from a special Panzer commission organzied by Guderian to analyze the T-34. The new design was needed as it was purposefully engineered to mount the necessary weapons and armor required while still remaining agile. The Panther was the tank that was needed, but didn't enter service until early 1943 and was not available in significant numbers until mid 1944. Pressing needs to replace losses at the front meant that while the Panther was supposed to replace the PzIV, the Germans had no choice but to continue rolling out the cheaper and faster to build PzIV's. Combine all of that with Hitler's meddling in the design process, duplication of efforts and lack of centralized planning it becomes evident why the Germans made the choices they did.
The Soviets show a distinct contrast here. With the T-34 they had developed the "next generation tank" purposefully designed for the Eastern Front and had it in production at the outset of the war. They had a true medium tank that could serve in all roles and was more then capable of standing toe-to-toe with German armor while still providing infantry support when needed. Instead of wasting time designing new chassis' or investing in making an inferior one work, the Soviets instead focused on running changes to enhance the T-34's combat capabilities while removing unneeded features. Much of the Soviet effort revolved around simplifying production allowing them to build each T-34 faster and cheaper then the one that proceeded it.
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