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thompsonx -> RE: Frontline: How the US lost IRAQ (8/13/2014 2:34:24 PM)
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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
The history channel? It's a well documented fact aired by military historians. I don't recall the exact figures but the Russians were surrendering in the hundreds of thousands in the summer and autumn of 1941. German mobilised units pushed that far ahead that they ran out of petrol and the infantry couldn't keep up.
The russians were surrendering by the tens of thousands not hundreds of thousands. Remember though that the soviet union had about four or five times as many people to draw from.
The german mobile armor did not run out of fuel. Hitler stopped guderian because he was more than a hundred miles in front of his infantry and both flanks were wide open. Hitler had guderian wheel south and take kiev and remove the threat on his southern flank
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ORIGINAL: thompsonx
The facts are that two months into the invasion of the soviet union the german army had filled up 62,000 body bags with german soldier's bodies.
Small beer compared with the amount of Russians who were killed and surrendered. The Russians couldn't live with the Germans for a long while.
While the relative numbers show clearly that the russians were loosing more men the germans were loosing men that they could not replace. They had lost more than ten percent of their entire invasion force by the end of the first six months of war and they had fuck all to show for it.
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ORIGINAL: thompsonx
The following summer at kursk, the largest tank battle in the history of the world, the germans found out that their little punk pop gun was no match for the russian tu 34.
It was over by then. Their chance came and went outside Moscow.
Quite clearly. Everything after that was too little too late.
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ORIGINAL: thompsonx
Amerikan lend lease did not start reaching the soviet union until 1944 through the rail line through iran. All that got there before was just a dribble.
The Americans supplied them with substantial resources.
Not until the war was nearly over.
The Russians thought they were giving them the stuff the Americans didn't want, granted, but it was far better than what they had.
The pos p 40&39 that the brits refused from the u.s. and passed on to the russians were no match for the real airplanes the russians had. Like the sturmovik, and the yak.
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ORIGINAL: thompsonx
The Russians only really got their act together when the NKVD basically said: "one step forward and you may survive; one step back and you will definitely be shot by your own".
This is a myth that I have never seen any proof of. I have, however, seen actual battle orders from u.s. generals directing artillery fire on any position that retreated. I am thinking here specifically of gen. chesty puller usmc at the battle of chosin resovoir during the korean war.
It is a well documented fact.
I have found that many "wel documented facts" are not. That it happened I do not doubt because of my background in the military I have first hand knowledge of this. Generally though it is the action of a local commander and not a function of policy from the top. There are numerous cases where the russians came up against stiff resistance and had to retreat. The battle for warsaw comes to mind.
Wally model chucked a monkey wrench into the russian advance(model was a master at the defense) when he set up a "prevent defense" in their path of advance. It took them nearly a month to clear the little punk out.
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ORIGINAL: thompsonx
They spent twenty years in russia practicing their tank tactics and thought the russians were too dumb to notice.
The Germans and the Russians co-operated during the 1920's when the Germans were restricted in terms of their armed forces. The Germans trained them in return for vehicles and the like to practice with.
Not exactly. The secret treaty allowed the germans to practice with their own hardware. Stalin was not about to let the nazi's see his kewel shit. The germans did not share their training with the russians. The russians spied on them and followed their training regimins. The russians took a different lesson from this than did germany. The germans (guderian,manstien) liked tanks massed for the attack. Russia on the other hand felt that the tank should be organic to the infantry and dispersed amongst them to protect them.
Kursk would be the exception here because it was primarily a tank battle.
As a result they were well versed in one another's capabilities.
The russians yes. They fully understood the german war machine. The germans on the other hand bellieved their own propaganda which depicted the russians as intellectually deficient and thus not capable of understanding modern mililtary stratigy and tactics.
On the back of this experience, German generals felt they were a tough lot and would be a tough nut to crack, which is partly why some German generals were highly sceptical of the wisdom of invading Russia. But then some thought invading France was a bad idea.
The generals who counted, guderian, manstein,bock,kesselring and rommel(among others) all felt that the job would be done by christmas 41.
If Russia was a smaller country with a smaller population, and closer to Germany, then the Germans would have demolished them within a summer. No doubt.
I believe it was in the fall of 1940 that stalin had zhuchove, tomishinko and pavlov war game the german invasion.
It would make sense that stalin had read hitlers book and consequently knew of hitlers plans for russia and the russians.
The war games on the sand table showed that the zhuchove plan to entice the germans all the way to moscow before taking to a full engagement was the only way to destroy the german army. Trying to stop the assault would be useless except in terms of attrition and lengthining the german supply line.
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