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They had high casualties because tyranical Communist dictators do not value life.Stalin purged his officer corp before Hitlers invasion besides if the Germans did not kill you at the line of battle the Russians would shoot their own men if they retreated.
Germany & Russia both allied to invade Poland so thus feed another tyranical dictator ego that led to WW2...Brave Soviet people or hapless sheeple?
They had high casualties because tyranical Communist dictators do not value life.Stalin purged his officer corp before Hitlers invasion besides if the Germans did not kill you at the line of battle the Russians would shoot their own men if they retreated.
Germany & Russia both allied to invade Poland so thus feed another tyranical dictator ego that led to WW2...Brave Soviet people or hapless sheeple?
I think it's a mix of both. Don't underestimate the bravery of people figthing for their homeland. One of the reasons Barbarossa failed to capture Moscow before the winter was the very stubborn resistance put up by the individual Soviet units cut off from the main forces, fighting to the bitter end when everything was lost & surrender would seem like the only way out. Sometimes these units were literally a single tank with a crew of 3-4 people stopping the advance of a whole German column for hours (the KV series tanks were often used in a dug in position as road blocks, they were so well armored that most German units lacked the firepower to knock them out, and had to wait for the 88mm guns or the air support before they could advance) The sheeple won't do that. OTOH there were literally millions of POWs especially early in the war, and about a millon of Russians fought for Hitler in the units he set up from the captured POWs. So it went both ways.
A problem bigger than Stalin's purge was the Red Army expansion just before the war, most commanding officers were holding positions way above their ability / experience, and most junior officers were straight out of military school and had no experience whatsoever.
All of this, combined with understandable hysteria over the possibility of losing (which would lead to catastrophic consequences for the entire nation, not just the Communist dictatorship), created the atmosphere where people's lives were wasted in mindless frontal attacks by scared, poorly prepared, inexperienced commanders. As the war progressed, the commanders at all levels became more experienced, but also the army now was on the offensive, and naturally the attacker suffers more casualties. The Germans, too, understood all too well that if the Germany is overrun by the USSR, the whole nation risks being wiped out (which didn't happen) so the level of resistance they put up on the Eastern front was nothing like the Western front - in the West, they fought bravely but when they lost, they surrendered; in the East, they often fought to death.
The scale and duration of the combat fairly well ensure there would be massive casualties.
Certainly, but the Germans lost approx 4.5 mln soldiers fighting in three separate war theaters from 1939 to 1945, the Soviets lost about 9 to 14 mln fighting in one theater from 1941 to 1945 ( per Wiki, Russian Ministry of Defense says it's 8.7 mln while it's own official database lists 14 mln dead and missing).
Also per Wiki, 2.5 mln German soldiers were killed or MIA on the Eastern front. So it's roughly 3.5 to nearly 6 dead Soviet soldiers for each dead German soldier.
Certainly, but the Germans lost approx 4.5 mln soldiers fighting in three separate war theaters from 1939 to 1945, the Soviets lost about 9 to 14 mln fighting in one theater from 1941 to 1945 ( per Wiki, Russian Ministry of Defense says it's 8.7 mln while it's own official database lists 14 mln dead and missing).
Also per Wiki, 2.5 mln German soldiers were killed or MIA on the Eastern front. So it's roughly 3.5 to nearly 6 dead Soviet soldiers for each dead German soldier.
The major losses came at the beginning of the war, with total unpreparedness of Soviet Army for the attack ( plus mass extermination of Soviet POWs by Germans,) and at the end of the war, when Soviet Army had to storm fortified dugouts of the enemy.
The major losses came at the beginning of the war, with total unpreparedness of Soviet Army for the attack ( plus mass extermination of Soviet POWs by Germans,) and at the end of the war, when Soviet Army had to storm fortified dugouts of the enemy.
Well, the Germans also had to storm fortified dugouts, didn't they ?
All sources I read seem to imply that while the skill of the Soviet high command had improved considerably by 1943-44, the quality of their field officers remained somewhat lacking, most likely because of the high turnover due to casualties and as the result very short training (by Western standards, anyway). They studied their mistakes and changed their ways on a grand scale, but they didn't give their men enough time to prepare for their job. The training of soldiers was also very basic at best. So as a result, an average Soviet junior officer was brave, stubborn, determined, but lacked initiative and ability to make independent decisions. And the fairly brilliant planning of their high commanders (by the 2nd part of the war anyway) was carried out with excessive human cost. The "lessons learned" mainly applied to top brass.
Well, the Germans also had to storm fortified dugouts, didn't they ?
Yes. But only at certain point in time, after Soviets could already recuperate and regroup.
Initially however the element of unexpectedness was on German side.
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All sources I read seem to imply that while the skill of the Soviet high command had improved considerably by 1943-44, the quality of their field officers remained somewhat lacking, most likely because of the high turnover due to casualties and as the result very short training (by Western standards, anyway). They studied their mistakes and changed their ways on a grand scale, but they didn't give their men enough time to prepare for their job.
They didn't have time. The enemy was pressing forward and a lot of Russian troops were yesterday's students and retirees. With other words - the volunteers. And in the most daring moments, when the enemy was at the gates of Moscow, that's what they did - got few drills they had time for and went straight to the front lines.
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The training of soldiers was also very basic at best. So as a result, an average Soviet junior officer was brave, stubborn, determined, but lacked initiative and ability to make independent decisions. And the fairly brilliant planning of their high commanders (by the 2nd part of the war anyway) was carried out with excessive human cost. The "lessons learned" mainly applied to top brass.
You are talking about this war as it was some kind of honorable duel.
It wasn't. It was a war directed at annihilation of troops and civilians alike.
Re: "You are talking about this war as it was some kind of honorable duel.
It wasn't. It was a war directed at annihilation of troops and civilians alike"
For sure. Annihilation it was.
In Stalingrad, the Germans were met with 'Rattenwaffe', rat war, where swarms of rats 'flowed like a warm river over the living and the dead'. With Kursk, it was in an area of 3 square miles where armor clashed and banged away at each other relentlessly. These were terrible and murderous battles.
It was noted when looking at the awful Winter War that Russia's army was a 'toothless dinosaur' but a comment from a German soldier thought otherwise:
'...unprejudiced observers also noticed some very positive characteristics of the Russian soldier: his incredibly tough conduct in defense , his imperviousness to fear and despair, and his almost unlimited capacity to suffer'.
All in all it has to be said these are the characteristics which brought them victory against the Nazis. They were an incredible force.
Re: "You are talking about this war as it was some kind of honorable duel.
It wasn't. It was a war directed at annihilation of troops and civilians alike"
For sure. Annihilation it was.
In Stalingrad, the Germans were met with 'Rattenwaffe', rat war, where swarms of rats 'flowed like a warm river over the living and the dead'. With Kursk, it was in an area of 3 square miles where armor clashed and banged away at each other relentlessly. These were terrible and murderous battles.
It was noted when looking at the awful Winter War that Russia's army was a 'toothless dinosaur' but a comment from a German soldier thought otherwise:
'...unprejudiced observers also noticed some very positive characteristics of the Russian soldier: his incredibly tough conduct in defense , his imperviousness to fear and despair, and his almost unlimited capacity to suffer'.
All in all it has to be said these are the characteristics which brought them victory against the Nazis. They were an incredible force.
To be fair their culture also had a flip side - indecisiveness and poor training. While the Germans encouraged their military people to take initiative, even if it led to costly mistakes sometimes, and trained every soldier and officer to be able to act at the level of his immediate commander, the Soviets were often afraid to take responsibility, and I suspect that failures due to miscalculation (as opposed to just poor performance) were not often tolerated. This is not the flaw of character but the flaw of the system.
Interestingly that this is what Rommel used to say about the Italians and some other high ranking German general said about the Spanish fighters of the Blue Brigade - tough, brave, great in defense, but indecisive and very poorly led.
To be fair their culture also had a flip side - indecisiveness and poor training. While the Germans encouraged their military people to take initiative, even if it led to costly mistakes sometimes, and trained every soldier and officer to be able to act at the level of his immediate commander, the Soviets were often afraid to take responsibility, and I suspect that failures due to miscalculation (as opposed to just poor performance) were not often tolerated. This is not the flaw of character but the flaw of the system.
Interestingly that this is what Rommel used to say about the Italians and some other high ranking German general said about the Spanish fighters of the Blue Brigade - tough, brave, great in defense, but indecisive and very poorly led.
If simply "indecisiveness and poor training" would have been the culprit, there was no way Russians could have won that war.
As I've said, the reason for huge losses was 1941 - total unpreparedness of Russians for war, downright panic and plenty of wrong initial decisions. There were a lot of what Russians relate to as "cauldrons," because English "entrapment" or "pocket" doesn't reflect the picture quite well I think. Those "caldrons" were huge at the beginning of the war - Minsk, Smolensk, Uman, Vyazma, Rzev. From what I remember there were about 3 million soldiers lost in the first months of war ( now some are saying even 5 million?) so that's when the major losses took place, when the commandment of different levels was escaping, leaving their soldiers behind. And these soldiers were then exterminated in concentration camps.
Last edited by erasure; 05-13-2015 at 09:08 AM..
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