Hello

Hello,

I am finishing my paper contrasting the operational aspects of the Second World War on the eastern front, particularly regarding tank production, using my time MGU or Moscovie Gusenadsartvie Universitet. (Moscow State University) and limited access to the Federal Archives.

I've also aided in research regarding the differences in tactical, operational, and strategic procedures of the Soviet Army and Wehrmacht as well as war college studies regarding various engagements in the war.

Feel free to ask any questions regarding these topics or more broadly, why the Germans lost the war.

I answered questions in a thread last night and was asked to make a new for any follow up.

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youtube.com/watch?v=tygk9-aneC4
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a483385.pdf
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Why did the Soviets stick with a doctrine that called for multi-axial attacks long after field performance demonstrated that they couldn't handle those sorts of things, couldn't exploit them when they did work, and often just opened up to massive losses doing a bunch of half-assed attacks?

Also, do you have any idea why Soviet air doctrine placed so much emphasis on low altitude fighters and so little on high altitude? I'm still a bit flabbergasted that the Soviets preferred the Aircobra to all other American Lendlease planes.

Soviet Doctrine evolved significantly during the war you'll have to specify which part of the war you are referring to.

You are completely correct in stating the soviets had no ability to perform large scale, multiaxis attacks during the initial part of the war. This was mainly due to a lack of a proficient officer corp at all levels of leadership able to coordinate complex plans at either the tactical or the operational level.

Later in the war, particularly in 44 but as early as 42, the Soviets proved themselves to be very capable of performing attacks, but never saw breakthroughs on the same scale that the Germans did, primarily because a majority of the Great German breakthroughs in France and Russia came down to the tactical skill and experience of their lower officer corp(relatively speaking the German Higher Office corp was lacking) and a great deal of luck.

By the time the Soviet Army had regrouped and reorganized well enough to attack back in earnest, the Germans had learned very well how to defend, and even defend in paralyzing breakthrough scenarios using ad hoc units, once again thanks to their brilliant lower officer corp.

It's important to remember that the concept of WW 2 as a true mobile and maneuver war is a myth, and most of the war resembled the First World War, with large periods of immobility followed by frantic attacks. True mobility did not return until 44 when the Soviets mastered their art of war and crushed the Wehrmacht

There is a lot of debate regarding the use of strategic bombers and their use during the war. Regardless of the devastation inflicted by the bomber wings of America and Britain, the actually effect was negligible. In fact during the most fierce and quote unquote effective bomber periods in 1943 and 44, German war production actually increased.

The use of high altitude strategic bombers was also questionable in tactical attacks, since their ability to accurately target tactical targets was not existent. The Germans and the Soviets learned early that the best way to use aircraft were as low level, accurate attack wings that could inflict real damage on ground targets. High-level bombing prior to the invention of on-munition targeting technology was completely inaccurate, and the soviets, being the most pragmatic army in the war, decided that the aircraft that could actually hit targets would be the most useful ones.

hoped that answered your question

No, actually, I was asking about fighter aircraft, not bombers. Compared to just about everyone else, the Soviets made little effort to have high altitude fighters and interceptors. Most air to air clashes began with 109s or 190s diving on Soviet planes and chewing them up. True, because of it the Soviets generally did well at close escort and getting CAS sorties through, but the concept of trying to control airspace with fighter sweeps seems curiously absent from what Soviet documents I've read, and I actually seem to recall that the single biggest downer of German planes was the IL-2, not any of the Soviet fighters. And of course, the Soviets did far less to destroy Luftwaffe assets than the Western Allies, even if the overwhelming majority of ground combat was happening out there.

I know this has something to do with it, but did the American Lend-Lease change the Russian or German operational strategy? What they produced or how they produced it?

High altitude fighting only occurred during strategic bombing sorties. 90 percent of sorties flown in the eastern front occurred in the mid to low level air zones. There is not need for high altitude flying if there are limited strategic bombing sorties. Your comment about 190s "chewing up" soviet planes might have been true in 1941 and parts of 42, but after the refitting of the Soviet Airforces, each side was on pairity until 43, when the Luftwaffe began to see horrendous losses on the Western air front. Your comment regarding the losses of Luftwaffe planes is also very general. Relative to the era, IL-2s brought down many larger, nonfighter aircraft due to a lack of fighter craft. However, during the later parts of the war, most aircraft in the Luftwaffe were brought down in their highest numbers by fighters and ground fire respectively.

Lend lease was incredibly instrumental aiding operational strategy. Of most use were mobile transport, half tracks and the famous GMC CCKW "deuce and a half" (trucks made up the vast MAJORITY of lend-lease, with nearly half a million delivered). The Soviets used a great amount of these, which allowed for the retrofitting of some of the tractor factories, particularly those relocated to the Urals to become tank producers. The trucks were incredibly important to the ability to ferry supplies and troops for the Soviets, who stood to be much more mechanized than the Germans, who used horses (about 2 million during the war) to resupply most standing infantry units.

hope that answered your question

Can I ask, in your opinion which men were most beneficial for the development of Soviet military theory during the war?

And since you mentioned it, why did Germans lost in the end? Was it due to Russian national toughness and the fact they fought a war of extermination which allowed for total mobilization?

Thanks man.

I thought the Soviets accounted for the majority of Nazi+Nazi ally airplane losses?

youtube.com/watch?v=tygk9-aneC4

In totality, no the strategic bombing campaign by the allies starting in late 42 into 43 caused more fighter losses overall than the Soviets, seemingly the only useful thing in my opinion of the Allied strategic bombing campaign

>Regardless of the devastation inflicted by the bomber wings of America and Britain, the actually effect was negligible. In fact during the most fierce and quote unquote effective bomber periods in 1943 and 44, German war production actually increased.

This is incorrect. Yes, German production increased, but by much, much lower amounts than what they had predicted as a result of the bombing. Speer admitted as much.

Tukhachevsky and Zhukov. Tukhachevsky was purged before the war, but his work still shaps warfare today.

Zhukov was the most ruthless and effective commander of the war, bar none, his implementation of Tukhachevskys work as early as 39 in the border war with Japan and later in full implementation of Deep Battle is still studied today by the US as the pinnacle total war strategy, as well as the first effective implementation of Operational Level of War.

The Germans lost because of an inability to match the Soviets in their implementation of war. The Germans relied too much on empty rhetoric, inefficient and overengineered equipment, and complete misunderstanding of the war they were fighting.

The Russians, having lead theoretical development of War since the 30s, would have fared better if not for the circumstances forced upon them by Stalin.

Rember war is not a battle of Armies or People. People are same all over, and the most marganizlied and misaligned people can win wars against the self-proclaimed ubermensch and or the say the protectors of the free world in America's case. War is a conflict of systems, systems of production, of operation and of organization. The Soviet system geared up for a total and absolute war and was running full steam in 1942. The Germans, due to a baseless believe in their own unwavering success, their inability to change their operational and strategic models because of prior victories using these models, and their god awful mid-level and upper level inefficiencies, were never in any position to win the war, even in 1941.

I can provide details about any of these topics if needed

Even as late as the spring of '44 you have things like the 1st Jassny-Kishniev, Crimea, and the early Baltic offensives going on simultaneously and quite a bit distant from each other, with the result that Crimean works well, the Baltics plod, and the the first Kishniev was a mess. Yeah, you had successful offensives and counter-offensives, but for every Uranus, you tended to have a flop of a Mars or two. And when you did get large scale breakthroughs in the summer and autumn, they finally seemed to have stopped doing that, making one big offensive at a time; doing something like Bagration first and then the 2nd Jassny-Kishniev, instead of attacking both simultaneously.

I'm not asking why the Soviets didn't counterattack. I'm asking why they always seemed to like to attack in several places at once, instead of focusing effort on one place and really making sure they smashed it up good.

If you mean in the sense of air combat starting and finishing at high altitudes, sure, but a lot of air combats at "lower" altitudes usually started with whomever had the height advantage diving on the other group, and getting dived on like that sucked. So, while for instance, Hartmann's average kill altitude was about 2,600 meters, his average patrol height was almost double that, and starting off higher up usually meant scoring first blood.

You do have some other stuff, although ancillary to the "core" strategic bombing campaign over Germany to either destroy morale or vital industries. The Transport Plan, for instance, was extremely effective.

relative to the loss of material and men on the allied side, it was not worth the effort. The estimations were done post war saw it took 16 airmen and 2 bombers lost to see a loss of 3 factory workers and 1 fighter1 or 1 tank worth of material destroyed or delayed. Speer noted actually that the most effective attacks on Germany war making abilities were attacks by small to medium size air to ground tactical attack planes on infrastructure and logistical centers, and not on manufacturing. Once again the usefulness of tactical ground attack planes has always been apparent vs the lack of accuracy and effect of the large-scale strategic bombing.

The main lesson of the War, as the Germans saw, is that breakthroughs are meaningless if the enemy can still persist in war. Soviet Deep battle was a strategic and operation strategy aimed at winning the war, not achieving breakthroughs. The success of deep battle can be seen in the massive advances by the Soviets 1944 from Ukraine all the way to the border of Germany.

More important to your point is the issues what's known as logistical glut. Put simply, the amount men and material placed in a single theater or operation gives diminishing returns after a certain point, due to logistical and operational inefficiencies.

To your point about attitudes, Strategic bombing altitudes took place MUCH higher than tactical bombing. Starting high in relative zones does play into tactics, but it would be a massive waste of fuel and operational time to start tactical bombing sorties at strategic bombing levels, since they had to end 50 meters or so in elevation relative to their target. Fighter planes usually escorted higher.

Part of the Luftwaffe's failings came from a senseless veneration of "fighter and bomber heroes" and not on strategic and operational effect. A high kill rate accounts for nothing if your Panzer formations and logistic lines are still being decimated by soviet air force tactical strikes

ITT: some dumbass regurgitates hackneyed myths.

What myth's are you referring to? Also I'd ask you to refrain from pejoratives this has been a very civil and enjoyable discussion so far.

Speer actually noted that the American bombing raids nearly brought the Germany industry to its knees, and were only not more effective because the RAF refused to cooperate (and the exchange rate was still well worth it when you consider German aircraft losses as well as production losses- part of the USAAF's goal was drawing the Luftwaffe into the air to destroy it). The ones that he criticized were the Brits of Bomber Command. He regarded their raids as basically having negligible impact.

>The main lesson of the War, as the Germans saw, is that breakthroughs are meaningless if the enemy can still persist in war. Soviet Deep battle was a strategic and operation strategy aimed at winning the war, not achieving breakthroughs. The success of deep battle can be seen in the massive advances by the Soviets 1944 from Ukraine all the way to the border of Germany.

And how do you know that the Soviet successes were because of the Deep Battle doctrine and not in spite of it? I'm really having trouble thinking of any two simultaneously launched offensives where both succeeded. Far, far more often you get something like what happened towards the tail end of '42; one big attack succeeds, the other is a colossal failure that does little to even clearly support the successful offensive. And it took many, many of these offensives before the German war machine was battered into submission.

Hell, that summer of 44 onward offensive was launched in violation of that principle of Deep Battle. You had Bagration and THEN you had the 2nd Jassny Kishniev and THEN you cleaned up in the Baltics, not trying to laucnh all of them at once.


Re: Altitudes, I'm not sure why you're still going on about strategic bombing. I've never suggested that tactical bombers should bomb from high up. I'm talking entirely about the escorting or intercepting fighters. Starting up higher than the other guy's fighter is a pretty significant advantage when you come into contact, and I'm curious as to why the Soviets never seemed to care much about that sort of thing. I mean fuck, you did have tactical bombing on the Western and Italian fronts, as well as stuff like reconnaissance by air, which was often done at low altitudes, and you had significant efforts nonetheless to develop high altitude fighters and interceptors, ideally "higher than what the other side has".

I agree with what you are saying, though Speer in post-war interviews criticized mainly the re-bombing of targets. I wouldn't agree with the bombing bringing German industry to its knees like I said industrial wartime production actually increased from 42-44, the only exception being the production of synthetic oil.

The majority of production ops managers interviewed post-war said that the disruption of logistics was much more detrimental than industrial bombing.

Not him, but I thought that re-bombing of targets was an extremely rare event, a couple of times with the attacks on the hydroelectric plants along the Saar being the only examples I could think of offhand, and at least the Brits generally thinking that fighting through the increased defensive presence that was usually there was not worth the chance of doing extra damage.

Or did you mean that he criticized in the sense that the Allies weren't doing it enough?

Concentrated and sustained bombing was very effective. Ballbearing production was basically stopped in 43, and in 44 oil bombing did the same to fuel production.

Actually, this strategic bombing thing got me thinking. At least as far as the English and Americans were concerned, one of the impetuses behind the strategic bombing campaign was interdepartmental rivalries between the nascent air forces (I realize bodies like the USAAF wasn't an indepdent arm at that point) and the ground forces; they didn't want to be the flying artillery.


As far as I know, the Soviets never had anything comparable. The RKKA was clearly in charge, and the VVS did what the army told them to do. Do you have any idea why this was? Did the purges, or perhaps even just the general political climate have any effect on that sort of thing?

No need to bully second world academia user-kun

Were the Officer Purges a good thing or a bad thing strategically for the military?

Bagration was Deep battle executed in its zenith. Evaluate what success means in these contexts. An offensive or defensive operation which impedes on the ability of the enemy to make war is successful by the standard of the STAVKA. We know Soviet success was because of deep battle thanks to 50 years of studying by western and eastern war colleges doing a detailed analysis of the Eastern Front. Deep Battle is the model for almost all military operations on the Operational level of war from 45 up unto the mid 70's across the world.
I would recommend reading The Russian Way of War: Operational Art 1904–1940 by Harrison, for an explanation of the concept, since it is not something I can explain concisely.

in regards to your questions about altitude, I reiterate that it is simply a waste of time and resources to operate at maximum altitude for most planes. To reach maximum operational altitude it could take from 45 min to an hour, wasting precious time and fuel. The ability to quickly run sorties and return with minimal time spent for achieving altitude meant more sorties during the day which meant more munitions delivered to targets.

Depends on who you ask. The Party thought it was great for ensuring that the military would remain loyal. For military success it is perhaps the detrimental things along side with Stalin refusing to heed warnings of impending war. There remained almost no surviving officers either low level or high level who had fought in a war by the time the winter war occurred

Exactly what you said, Speer criticized small bomb loads, lack of follow up and the changing of focus, meaning factories had an opportunity to rebuild. Sorry if misled English is not my first language.

But Bagration abandoned many of the core principles of Deep Battle (or at least, Deep Battle as I might mistakenly understand it). I mean hell, the orders from the State Defense Committed on April 17th, 1944, were to abandon simultaneous offensives in favor of sequential ones. I don't see how you can call it Deep Battle at it's zenith.

Will check out the book though. Thanks for the recommendation.

Generally what's your opinion on Beria, was he actually a serial rapist?

You are close to your answer. Stalin was largely influenced by his ground commanders in STAVKA, mostly Konev and Zhukov, and they wanted tactical bombings. The development of Soviet airforce mainly focused on using planes as an arm of the main armed forces, not as its own entity. Russian and Soviet military history usually revolved around high prestige high influence men who could get things done, and others falling in line. So yes a combination of political climate and how people interacted in Soviet Armed Forces

Remember UK and the USA is comprised mostly of citizen soldiers who brought in the ideals of their nations to the armed forces, which meant a degree of equity and an attempt at cooperation and a degree of autonomy.

"Moscovie Gusenadsartvie Universitet" wtf is this transliteration? It is "Moscovski Gosudarstvennyi Universitet".

Something like a strategic air doctrine takes a decade or longer to develop. The B-17 was designed in 1934.
I think you need to do some more background reading if you think Zhukov and Koneev were the ones who led the USSR's air doctrine.

dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a483385.pdf

A good read regarding Deep battle by Combat Institute in the USA

"The impossibility on a modern wide front of destroying the enemy army by one blow forces the achievement of that aim by a series of successive operations."
Soviet Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle Glantz, David M. Page 19.

Beria was effective at his job, though he was an awful human being as you said.
I never made these statements, I simply stated that they were following tenants developed in 1930s, particularly those of Vladimir Triandafillov

I apologize English nor Russian are my first language

Remember that Bagration was a MULTIFRONT wide engagement, consisting of multiple Operations. Geographically it was in the same region, but encompassed the entire front.

I apologize I must leave now. Thank you all for a very good discussion all of you are very well informed and i commend that in contrast to the discussion yesterday. I will answer one or two mor questions, but please come back tomorrow to discuss the specifics of productions, such as the use of horizontal integration in Soviet factories, and the differences in operation between Soviet and German factories with a little bit regarding US factories.

>dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a483385.pdf
Actually, I have read that (the PDF that is, not the cited Glantz book), and it's quite good, that was where I got my perhaps mistaken line about abandoning some of the concepts of Deep Battle for the success of Bagration.

Point made and taken. Actually, that got me thinking along another line. I haven't done the math, so bear with me a little here, but it seems intuitive to me that "Troop density" for lack of a better term, would have been lower in the Eastern Front than most other areas of combat in WW2. I mean sure, the German and Soviet armies were huge, but the distance they were fighting over was also huge. I'd be willing to bet that there were actually fewer soldiers, guns, tanks, etc. per kilometer of front line, not the reverse. Do you know of any books or articles concerning how that would have affected operations? Any speculation you'd care to offer? Am I being completely wrong with my intuition here?

All right. Be well, and come back soon. It's a shocking (and awesome) change of pace to the usual tripfaggots we get to have someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

Your intuition is solid during late 1941 to 44 but the front becomes much smaller as the Soviets push back the Wehrmacht. The Soviets are obsessed with troop density post-war from the records I have been allowed to see. My intiution is that during offensives and in important strategic areas they would pack as many men and material as possible while still avoiding glut, meaning lots of not very occupied fronts and a few very dense fronts. I read something like what you are wondering a long time ago in In Pursuit of Military Excellence by Naveh. Maybe it can help more than I can

Awesome. Two books to get. Once again, thanks.

Of course thank you for good questions please keep up study of the War you have good mind for it.

>I never made these statements

>Stalin was largely influenced by his ground commanders in STAVKA, mostly Konev and Zhukov, and they wanted tactical bombings.

Does Zhukov deserve the memes?

What's your favorite Soviet tank of WW2 and why?

If the Tiger II had been deployed in significant numbers against Russian IS-2s, do you think they would have had a useful impact on German offensive operations in late '44-'45?

>Tiger
>Offensive operations
>Fuel

Pick two

>German
>offensive operations
>late '44 -'45
Pick one

good point well made, I meant if they had that capacity, maybe something like Watch on the Rhine in the east

Could had the Germans win at Kursk if it wasn't for Hitler autism for new tanks?

You did have some very temporarily successful offensives, although they were always reversed in short order. I think the Lake Balaton one was the last, and that was in March of 45, IIRC.

Whats your opinion on G.S. Isserson?

No.

explain in detail

The Tiger series were a complete disaster in terms of unit cost and quantitiy produced, so
>significant numbers
no
Also does anyone know if the IS-series had any significance compared to the T-34-85?

google it faggot

not an argument

>My post is full of unsubstantiated meme assertions but other people have to document everything they say with academic rigor

I'm not even that guy, just pointing out that "google it faggot" as you stated it contributes nothing of value to the discussion
Your meme arrow didn't either

Why is Rokossovsky so brilliant yet underrated? He is largely unknown compared to Zhukov or Konev

You know what contributes nothing to the conversation or to Veeky Forums? This post

>a thread about tank production on the eastern front during WWII
>asking about Kursk is irrelevant
If you say so

>search engine of the largest repository of knowledge in human history
>asking to use it is irrelevant
If you say so

Then what's the point of having this thread in the first place if we all just can google it

None. This thread is dumb.

you're dumb

no u

u